Father-of-two buried alive after tractor trailed rolled on to his car

A father-of-two died when he was buried alive under soil from an overloaded trailer that detached from a tractor and rolled on to his car, an inquest heard.

Jon-Paul Prigent, 47, was in the passenger seat giving his daughter a driving lesson when the freak accident happened.

The combined weight of the trailer and soil put him in a ‘compressed’ position, causing asphyxiation. 

The decoupling is likely to have occurred because of heavily worn equipment, a coroner has ruled, leading him to call for stricter regulation of agricultural vehicles, many of which are exempt from independent testing.

In a prevention of future deaths report, Peter Nieto wrote: ‘This places the responsibility for checking roadworthiness on the user... It is highly likely that some tractors and trailers are being driven on roads for “agricultural purposes” in unroadworthy and unsafe conditions.’

The report was sent to the Department for Transport, Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency, the National Farmers Union, Health and Safety Executive and other agricultural bodies. 

Mr Prigent, a programme manager who had served in the Armed Forces, was with his daughter Maisie in his Toyota Aygo near the family home in Chesterfield, on July 30, 2020, when he was killed.

The overloaded trailer detached as it went over a speed bump before rolling down the hill, hitting a wall and overturning onto the car, covering it in soil. 

Mr Prigent, who was married to Catherine and also had a son, Oliver, was pronounced dead at the scene. His daughter escaped with minor injuries.

Senior coroner for Derby and Derbyshire Mr Nieto concluded an inquest on November 15 and his report was published on Thursday. 

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He gave a narrative verdict, saying: ‘It is unlikely that his death would have occurred if the hitch and coupling components had been checked to a reasonable standard.’ 

A combination of factors probably led to the accident, he added, including the towing hook and hitch ring being worn to below its minimum thickness and a gap between the tip of the towing hook and keeper plate.

The trailer had a maximum load of ten tons but was loaded with 13.8 tons of soil, which was unevenly distributed, affecting its centre of gravity.

‘As the hitch coupling passed over the speed bump, a bigger gap opened up for the hitch ring to pass between the tow hook and keeper plate,’ Mr Nieto said in his report.

He noted tractors and trailers driven below 25mph do not require safety measures to prevent decoupling and suggested the UK introduce more robust laws similar to the EU.

The tractor and trailer, which belonged to a skip hire company, were driven by John Banks, 43, of Chesterfield, who was given a 16-week suspended sentence in November last year after he admitted failing to discharge general health and safety duty at work.