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There is a report of the inquest in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle on 29th Jun 1989 , page 19
Accident verdict on man hit by car
Disaster struck when a man set off to walk back to his father’s house after dark on an unlit country road.
Gary Jackson, who was walking on the edge of the Newton Hall to Chester Moor road, was killed after being hit by a car.
An inquest in Durham heard 22 year old Mr Jackson died from a broken neck consistent with a road accident after being thrown up onto the windscreen of the car.
He had set off to walk from his home on Finchdale Abbey caravan site with friend Sean Davis, back to his father’s house in Pelton Fell near Chester-le-street, after dark one evening in March.
They had called into the Newton Grange pub for a drink and then began walking along the back road to Chester Moor past the Finchdale Training College.
Mr Davis, a barman, now living in Leighton Buzzard said he was walking on the rough grass verge and Gary was on the edge of the road with is back to the trafic.
He told the hearing Mr Jackson had been drnking on the after noon and ‘slept most of it off’ but was still a little unsteady on his feet.
Mr Davis warned Mr Jackson to ‘move in a bit’ as a car approached and then suddenly heard glass smashing and ‘something flying past’.
Although he went to Mr Jackson’s aid and another motorist tried to revive him he was dead on arrival at hospital,
North Durham Coroner Geoffrey Burt returned a verdict of accidental death.
Boo
