Inquest into Trafalgar Square lorry tragedy- Gardener Mark Lavery died of multiple injuries

Published: 12 November 2010
by JOSH LOEB

AN unemployed gardener had been “trying to turn his life around” shortly before he died in a collision with a lorry in Trafalgar Square, an inquest heard on Tuesday.

Mark Lavery, 37,  died of multiple injuries after the incident at the junction with The Strand on February 21 at 1.40am.

PC Michael Osbaldeston, who investigated, told Westminster Coroner’s Court that the lorry had been in “stop-start” traffic and that its driver, Andrew Clark, had not seen Mr Lavery but had been “aware of something untoward”.

Mr Clark said: “I heard a noise, stopped the vehicle and got out. As I got out there was a gentleman walking towards me from the right-hand side and he said ‘Don’t worry about it mate, it’s only your grille’.”

After finding a displaced radiator grille on the road in front of his lorry, Mr Clark continued driving. 

He had stopped to unload at a nearby supermarket, heard sirens, returned to the scene, and found emergency services attending to Mr Lavery.   

Addressing Mr Clark, Mr Lavery’s mother, Patricia Watson, said: “I drive for a living also. I can’t help thinking that if you’d have looked more closely maybe the damage to Mark would not have been so severe.” 

Mr Clark replied: “I bent over to pick the grille up and there was nothing to say I had hit anybody.”

He added that no one on the street or in surrounding vehicles had alerted him to the fact that there was someone underneath his lorry.

The court had heard that Mr Lavery, of Lamble Street, Camden, had a history of alcoholism.

Delivering a verdict of accidental death, coroner Dr Paul Knapman said analysis of Mr Lavery’s blood showed “at least two-and-a-half times the legal limit for driving”, adding: “That’s all right, he wasn’t driving a vehicle on the road, but you have to be careful when you cross roads like this.”

Dr Knapman said that “with the benefit of hindsight it would have have been better had the driver made a much closer inspection” but added that Mr Lavery “was frankly where a pedestrian should not be and under the influence of alcohol”.