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Technician died after accident

From the archive, first published Friday 31st May 2002.

A man was hit by car and killed after a security light temporarily blinded the driver.

On November 10 last year, Jimmy Smithson, 56, of no fixed address, left The Mounts Bay Inn, in Nuneham Courtenay, and tried to cross the A4074 in the direction of Griffin Transmissions, where he worked as a gearbox technician.

An inquest in Oxford heard that as he crossed the road a car driven by David Young, of Baldon House, Marsh Baldon, struck him and he was flung across the road.

Mr Young said: "The first I knew of anybody in the road was when I saw the top half of a man, a few feet from the front of the car. I swerved to the left and hit the brakes but couldn't avoid him."

Mr Young said he then turned off the road into the pub's car park and went to Mr Smithson's aid.

He said that a bright security light, shining from the pub, had obscured his vision. There were no witnesses to the accident.

Mr Smithson suffered multiple injuries. He was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital, in Oxford, but he died shortly after his arrival at the casualty department.

Pc Terry Anderson, of Thames Valley Police, said he carried out a reconstruction of the accident: "When I was driving towards the scene, the officer standing where Mr Smithson would have been was barely visible because of the security light."

Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Gardiner recorded a verdict of death as the result of an accident.

The security light has since been removed.