The inquest into the death of Wayne Riggall took place last week at Oxford Coroner’s Court. The inquest was held before a jury due to it being a workplace death.  

Riggall died on 23 July 2018. He had gone into the warehouse at the site to fetch some paper reels, using a twin-clamp roll truck. When a colleague went to check on him shortly afterwards he was found under the truck, which was on its side. It appeared that a smaller stack of reels had come down, causing the truck to topple over and crush him.

The inquest found that it was not possible to say precisely why the truck had toppled over.

In a statement, the office of the Oxfordshire Coroner, Darren Salter, said: “Wayne Riggall died at approximately 17:55 on 23 July 2018 at his place of work whilst performing his regular duties. The truck he was driving toppled over, crushing him beneath causing his death. While evidently related to the movement of large and heavy paper reels the exact cause of the truck toppling cannot be determined. Based on the evidence it is not possible to determine whether Wayne voluntarily exited the truck prior to or during it toppling.”

The conclusion of the jury was: accident.

Walstead Group chief operating officer Roy Kingston said: “I hope Wayne’s family has found some form of closure as a result of this extremely thorough process. There are no winners in this.”

Walstead Bicester is one of four Walstead Group web offset sites in the UK. The firm has not been required to make any changes to its working practices following the incident.

“The Coroner did not consider it necessary to do a Regulation 28/PFD report to the company or make recommendations for changes,” the Coroner’s Office stated.

The Coroners & Justice Act 2009 allows a coroner to issue a Regulation 28 Report to an individual, organisation, local authorities or government departments and agencies, where the coroner believes that action should be taken to prevent further deaths.