Death of walker run over at Yorkshire farm was an accident, jury rules

Bruce Norman, 71, died at Gillingwood Hall farm, near Gilling West in Richmondshire, on the morning of Sunday, October 28 in 2018.

The retired managing director was run over by a Manitou telehandler – a vehicle used to transport heavy loads – that was being reversed across the courtyard of the farm.

An inquest, held in Harrogate this week, heard he was checking a GPS device while his friend Paul Tomkinson was asking the farm owner for directions.

A post-mortem examination found the father-of-two, who lived in Thornton-le-Beans, had died after suffering extensive pelvic injuries which resulted in severe blood loss.

Farm worker Richard Cookson, who was driving the vehicle, was interviewed by North Yorkshire Police, shortly after the collision.

He told police he saw Mr Tomkinson behind the vehicle before he reversed, but Mr Norman was in a blindspot.

He added: “It's just been an accident. I have not seen him in the blindspot. I didn’t hear – there was no yelling or anything like that – to say he was behind me.”

Collision investigator Steve Kirkbright told the inquest the vehicle had three mirrors but there was a “significant blind spot” behind it – on the driver’s side – and no reversing alarm.

Coroner Oliver Longstaff said: “The conclusion, as to what manner of death it was in inquest terms, inevitably has to be that it was an accidental death, because no one has suggested otherwise."

The jury ultimately ruled the death was accidental.