HEADLEY man John Burrows died when he was run over by his own car after failing to fully apply the handbrake and instinctively trying to stop the car when it began rolling down his driveway, an inquest heard.

Retired Mr Burrows, 81, a former clerk at Woking Borough Council whose wife Sylvia is secretary of Headley Bowling Club - became trapped under his Vauxhall Corsa on the sloped driveway of his home in Headley’s Hilland Rise on April 2.

Neighbour Roslyn Linse told the hearing, at Basingstoke Coroners’ Court last Wednesday, that she was in her garden when she heard a scream and saw the car rolling down the driveway of the bungalow belonging to Mr Burrows and his wife Sylvia.

She said: “I heard a scream or a shout. I looked up to see my neighbour’s car rolling very slowly down the drive.

“The car came to a stop and I ran across the road. I saw John was lying beneath the car. I saw his face scrunched up near the tyre.”

Mrs Linse said she called the emergency services and knocked on the door to alert Mrs Burrows to what had happened.

She said an air ambulance had not been able to land on a nearby green because of a fete and had to land in the grounds of a nearby church instead.

She added that the emergency services “seemed to take a long time” to arrive.

“John was a good friend and neighbour and will be missed by the whole neighbourhood,” said Mrs Linse. “He was a very fit man - it was just a tragic accident.”

Pc Steve Wootton, of Hampshire Police, said the car had been tested and no defects found.

But he said if the handbrake was applied with only four clicks rather than the full five, it would not hold the vehicle, which weighed 1,100kg, and it would start to roll down the drive.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, coroner Andrew Bradley said: “John was behind the car. Whether the handbrake was applied or not applied sufficiently, it is quite clear the car starts to roll back, there’s this automatic reaction where you try to stop it and I am sure that’s what John did.

“He is behind the car trying to stop it; he’s knocked down by the weight of the car as it is rolling backwards; he falls to the ground and he is effectively scrunched under the car and breaks his neck and he asphyxiated because he is not able to breathe at that point.”

He added: “It was a very tragic set of circumstances.”