John Thomas Lea

John Thomas Lea died after he was struck by a van on Sandy Cross pitch on 6 August 1960 whilst walking home with his wife.

The van driver that hit him said that moments before the impact that his windscreen had suddenly gone white and that he had then hit out at it and pushed his hand through it to make a hole and that when he did so he saw John Lea and his wife in front of him and remembered then turning to avoid them but could not remember anything after that.

When the Coroner summed up he said that the main decision for the jury was whether John Lea died from the result of criminal negligence such as would justify a verdict of manslaughter but the jury returned an open verdict.

John Lea's cause of death was given as a depressed fracture of the left frontal bone of the skull with laceration of the brain. He had also suffered the fracture of several ribs on his right side, a fractured neck and fractures to his right leg.

His wife said that they had been walking on the right hand side of the road with her on the greensward and John Lea by her side on the left and that the van hit her first and took her about three yards down the road and then hit John Lea.

She said that she heard no sound at all of the van coming along the road.

She added that she couldn't tell what happened to John Lea.

The driver of the van who had lived in St George's Terrace, Kidderminster and was an electrician, said that he knew the road as he travelled it frequently and that he remembered seeing some people on the right hand side of the road as he was at the top of the hill. He said that he then remembered the windscreen going white and said that he then hit out, pushing his hand through it to make a hole to see through and said that when he did he saw John Lea and his wife and that he then remembered turning the wheel round to avoid them but couldn't remember anything after that.

He added that his van had been in an accident previously when part of the front offside had been damaged and the front frame of the windscreen had been bent.

He added that he had not dozed off on the journey.

When he was questioned he said that the damage done to the van in the previous accident that he had mentioned had not been to the extent to have put it off the road.

A policeman that saw the van driver in hospital two days after the accident said that the van driver told him that he had almost been on top of the people and had tried to avoid them and that the next thing that he knew was that he was inside the van shouting for his passenger.  He said that the van driver told him that his van had been all right in the morning but that he had known that there had been something wrong with it before but hadn't known what it was.

The policeman said that he had arrived at the scene about ten minutes after the accident and found that the van was on its side and that John Lea was lying face down near the front wheels.

He said that the van was a Ford 10 and had been travelling from Bromyard and that for some reason it had left its correct side on Sandy Cross Pitch, grazed the grass verge and then travelled across the road at an angle to its nearside for a distance of 87 feet. He said that it had then mounted the grass verge on its nearside, travelled for 27 feet and then collided with the hedge and bank in front of a cottage. He said that the van then travelled another 16 feet, overturned and came to rest facing in the opposite direction from which it was going.

He noted that at the point when the van travelled to its offside and first collided with John Lea and his wife there had been no glass left in the windscreen.

A 12-year-old schoolboy who lived in Hunter's Lodge, Buckenhill in Bromyard said that the van had passed him on the road on its correct side and that it had been being driven properly. He said that he then turned down Buckenhill Drive and after having gone about 20 yards he heard a crash and a woman crying out. He said that he then heard the woman cry out again and that he then ran back and saw the van lying on its side with a man lying just by its front wheels and another man getting out through the windscreen.

A police sergeant with the Traffic Department in Hereford said that he examined the steering and brakes on the van on the evening of the accident and found that they were in good condition and that he examined it again on 9 August 1960 and confirmed his previous examination. He said that the only repair that he found that had been done recently was an adjustment to the clutch.

The police sergeant then went on to explain the whitening of the windscreen that the van driver had described as having happened and said that such conditions were caused by heat or contraction of the body or by contraction of the metal in the windscreen. He said that the windscreen could become opaque suddenly and without warning and that it could happen without any impact whatever.

When the police sergeant was cross-examined he said that to the best of his memory the day of the accident had been fairly warm, but said that heat did not itself often cause the opaqueness, saying that it was normally flexing of the car body that did it. He added that it was quite possible in the circumstances that the body flexed sufficiently to make the windscreen opaque, especially as the vehicle was unleaded.

The assistant company secretary of the van driver's employers, A French Ltd of Kidderminster said that about ten days before the accident that another driver had had some trouble with the brakes and clutch on the van and that on 25 July 1960 that the van had been taken into a garage in Hereford where the clutch was adjusted. He noted that the van was only six months old and added that he knew nothing of the other accident that the van driver had mentioned in his evidence.

The passenger in the van, who had lived in Lea Street, Kidderminster and who like the van driver was an electrician, said that they had been working in Hereford but had not taken much notice of the journey as he had been lying in the back in his seat dozing. He said that it was either the swerve or the brakes that had roused him.

It was noted that in his statement to the police that he had said that the windscreen had broken before they had hit the man, saying that the first thing that he remembered was the screech of brakes which was what woke him up and that he then saw a couple walking on the road with their backs to the van and that it then seemed that the windscreen smashed in their faces.

When the Coroner summed up he told the jury that their main decision was whether John Lea's death was the result of such criminal negligence as to justify a verdict of manslaughter. He said that the evidence had been thoroughly gone through and that what had been discovered could not justify such a charge, nor to a lesser degree had it been found that evidence was available to justify charges of dangerous driving or careless driving or kindred offences.

However, he added that he was not satisfied that he knew precisely how the fatality had occurred, but told the jury that they had to refer to the evidence.

He said that the schoolboy was a good witness and had told the court that just before the crash that the van had passed him driving on its correct side, straight and properly and at a normal speed.

He added that the van driver in his evidence had attributed the trouble to the sudden whitening over his windscreen.

The Coroner then stated that they would not be justified in returning a verdict of manslaughter and that that left misadventure or accidental death, but added that if they felt any uneasiness that they could return an open verdict and that he himself felt that that would perhaps be the more commendable course to adopt.

The jury then returned an open verdict.