Eric Johnson

Eric Johnson was found fatally injured in York Street, Manchester in May 1958.

He had lived in Barnsley and had been out on a miner's trip to Haydock races which had stopped at Manchester on the return journey.

However, he was not seen again and the coaches left without him.

It was heard that when it was time for the coaches to leave Manchester that Eric Johnson had gone off to look for some trippers who were missing.

It was said that the others thought that he had got in the second coach but it was noted that when the second coach left Piccadilly at 12.35am that it had had to stop to let an ambulance go by and that the ambulance had had Eric Johnson in it.

A doctor that examined Eric Johnson said that Eric Johnson had died from a 6 inch fracture to his skull. He said that it was possible that Eric Johnson had had a haemorrhage that had caused him to fall but that he could not say with any certainty what had caused his fall.

He was found by a policeman lying near a lamppost in York Street. He was then lifted up by several men and when they asked him what had happened he didn't reply.

At about the same time another constable found a woman in the bus station with a cut eye and when asked how she received it she said that she had fallen.

When the Coroner at the inquest asked whether that neighbourhood was much frequented at that time of night by women of a certain class, the constable replied, 'Yes'. The constable added that some women had had to be turned off the coach.

When the Coroner summed up he said that no one seemed to know what happened to Eric Johnson. He said, 'Whether he had an altercation with someone who was frequenting that part of the city at that time of night because he refused to accede to their request and was pushed, I don't know, but it is quite a possibility. It might well be he had more drink than we have been told and his balance was easily upset'.