Unbraked truck kills schoolboy
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• An unattended truck which was left without its parking brake applied ran backwards onto a pavement and killed a 15-year-old boy in Highcliffe, Dorset, an inquest heard last week.
Driver Anthony Wright, working for Norfolk-based Bryan Cater Haulage, was unable to park in a store's loading bay to make a delivery so he left his Volvo FL6 17-tonner parked in the residential road on 3 September 1997. Wright, of North Wold, Thetford, Norfolk, told police he believed he had applied the parking brake but on legal advice he did not give evidence to the inquest.
Barry Claughton, a passer-by, climbed into the cab to check if there was anyone in the vehicle and found the park brake in the forward position. Police accident investigators said the braking system was in perfect working order and was unlikely to have failed.
Vehicle examiner PC Martin Chome told the inquest that the rear brakes were almost new and the parking brake could not have been activated before the driver left the cab.
Shoppers tried to help the boy, Daniel Witcher, but he died the next day in the Royal Bournemouth Hospital. Coroner Nigel Neville-Jones recorded a verdict of accidental death.