MAN KILLED BY BUS

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23301, 10 April 1941, Page 12

MAN KILLED BY BUS

♦ DRIVER HELD NOT TO BLAME A finding that no blame was in any way attachable to the driver of the bus was made by the Coroner (Mr E. C. Levvey, S.M.) at the inquest yesterday into the death of Archibald Victor Tibbott, who was killed on February 28 when a railways road service bus ran over him in Oxford terrace. The Coroner returned a verdict that Tibbott died on February 28 from severe head injuries received when he fell under a road service bus driven by Thomas Patrick Mcßrearty.

Sergeant f. Matthews conducted proceedings for the police. Mr A. B. Hobbs appeared for Tibbott’s widow, and Mr C. S. Thomas represented the driver of the bus, Thomas Patrick McBrearty. Mcßrearty, in evidence, said he was driving his bus along Oxford terrace about 5.15 p.m. on February 28. When he was approaching the intersection of Cashel and Durham streets he saw a man walking on the west side of the terrace. He emerged from behind a parked car and took a few paces out into the road as if to cross. The man then stopped, and when the bus was almost alongside him he took off his, hat and dived under the front wheels of the bus. Witness swerved to the right and applied his brakes. The bus was travelling about 15 miles an hour and he was able to stop it within its own length. On getting out of the bus he found that the front wheel had passed over the man, whose body was then lying slightly in front of the near rear wheel of the bus. Passengers gave evidence corroborating the previous witness. They agreed that Tibbott seemed to have deliberate, ly thrown himself under the bus. Death of Airman An inquest was also held into the death of Leading Aircraftsman William Gordon Stephens, of the Royal New Zealand Air Force Station, Harewood, who was killed in an aeroplane accident on Burnside road on February 20. Mr W. S. Kent appeared for Stephens’s widow. Evidence was given that Stephens, who was a flying trainee at Harewood, had been detailed to carry out solo flights round the aerodrome circuit and to practise landings. Shortly after 9 a.m. advice was received at the station that there had- been a crash as the result of a collision in the air between Stephens’s machine and another training machine. When the station fire fighting unit arrived the aeroplane was completely destroyed' and Stephens’s body was found in the cockpit severely charred. The Coroner found that Stephens died-from head injuries and a fracture

of the skull, , suffered when his machine collided with another during training operations, and crashing to the ground, was completely destroyed. Death After Fall A verdict in accordance with the medical evidence was returned at the inquest into the death of George Albert McPhail, who died in the Christchurch Hospital on February 2. Evidence was given that McPhail had been gassed during the last war, and was subject to falling turns. He was standing on the footpath in Tuam street on January 29, when he collapsed and fell, striking his head on the pavement. Medical evidence was given that he was suffering from a fractured skull and laceration of the brain. He underwent an operation Van February 1, but died the next day from the injuries received in his fall