Accidental ruling on couple's death

3:11pm Thursday 13th March 2008

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AN elderly couple were killed when a 21-year-old driver lost control of a Land Rover Discovery and ploughed into the car in which they were travelling, an inquest heard on Tuesday.

Grandparents Sidney and Elizabeth Flannery, of Leigh Road in Holt, were being driven by their daughter Christine on February 25 last year when pub doorman Stuart Cantello collided head-on with their car on the B3107 just outside Holt.

The inquest heard that moments before the crash Mr Cantello, now 22, had swerved to avoid something in the road, hit the kerb and bounced onto the opposite side of the road and into the path of the Flannery car.

Christine Flannery, 56, who lived next door to her parents and was their carer, said: "We had just come to a sharp bend and then the car was right in front of us. It was huge and black and bearing silently down upon us.

"I had the brief thought that there was nothing I could do to avoid it. The next thing I remember was the sound of metal cutters and being cut out of the car."

Mrs Flannery, 85, died from a ruptured aorta at the scene and her 91-year-old husband died from chest and cervical spine injuries at Bath's Royal United Hospital later that day after being airlifted by Wiltshire Air Ambulance.

Miss Flannery, who had been driving her parents to have tea with her sister in Bradford on Avon, suffered a broken left knee and right ankle and two split lips.

Mr Cantello, of Sarum Avenue in Melksham, told the inquest he was returning from a shopping trip in Bath and had borrowed the car from a friend at Riverway MOT Centre in Trowbridge.

He said: "I was coming up to the bend and I remember seeing something out of the corner of my eye. I assumed it was an animal so I swerved.

"It could have been anything. It could have been an animal or a plastic bag."

Police vehicle examiner Pc Alan Kyne found the Land Rover Discovery Mr Cantello was driving had under-inflated rear tyres that could have led to a loss of control under harsh steering.

Pc Stephen Cox, who investigated the incident, estimated Mr Cantello was travelling at 54mph, within the 60mph limit for the road.

He did not find any plastic bags or evidence that an animal had been hit and said the police and CPS concluded it was an automatic reaction to something he thought he had seen. No criminal charges have been brought against Mr Cantello.

Miss Flannery, who still walks with a limp, said: "It has been a devastating year for us as a family and the only mitigating factor was that they died with relatively little suffering, and that means a lot."

Wiltshire's deputy coroner Peter Hatvany's verdict: accident