Kenneth George Batty

Kenneth George Batty died from head injuries following a car accident.

He received head injuries on 12 September 1937 and later died in the Sheffield Royal Hospital on 23 February 1938.

He had received head injuries after the car that he had been in with three other men crashed after hitting a grass verge near Pilsley in Derbyshire.

After the Coroner had listened to the men that had been involved in the accident he said to the jury, 'I have been thinking for a long time that it is a waste of time listening to these witnesses. I think the best thing you can do is to return an open verdict'.

His wife said that they were married on 27 December 1937 and said that one Sunday in September 1937 Kenneth Batty, when he was her fiance, had met her with a cut on his head and a black eye and told her that he had been in a car smash the previous night.

She said that Kenneth Batty appeared to heal but that he was not the same man after the accident and complained of headaches and of feeling drowsy.

The doctor that carried out his post-mortem stated that Kenneth Batty had suffered head injuries that had led to a laceration of the brain and that his cause of death was haemorrhage of the brain caused by the head injuries.

A 20-year old man that had been a passenger in the car that had crashed said that they had been returning from Nottingham to Pilsley when they were going round a bend and the nearside wheel caught a grass verge and the car crashed through a fence and was wrecked. However, he said that Kenneth Batty didn't appear to be seriously hurt.

Another passenger, a 20-year old man gave similar evidence.

The driver and owner of the car, a 22-year old man, said that the accident had occurred about 6 miles from Pilsley. He said that they had gone round one bend and he was negotiating another bend and that due to the narrowness of the road a wheel struck the offside verge and the car somersaulted and landed on its wheels. However, he said that the car did not crash through the fence and said that the damage to the fence was caused later when he was releasing the car from the ditch.

It was then, that after hearing the evidence, that the Coroner addressed the jury and recommended an open verdict was returned.

When the Coroner addressed the driver he said, 'There is very little of your evidence and the evidence of the other witnesses that I believe. I do not know what the jury think, but that is my opinion of it'.

He had lived at 163 Bradway Road in Bradway.