Wellingborough firm facing £750,000 High Court claim over fatal fall from disused railway bridge

A Wellingborough company is facing a £750,000 High Court claim after a man fell to his death from a disused railway bridge on land it owned.

The claim is against F & A George Ltd and has been brought by a 76-year-old woman who saw her husband fall to his death from the bridge at King’s Cliffe.

She is seeking compensation for the trauma of seeing her husband die in front of her.

She suffered psychiatric injuries including post-traumatic stress disorder according to the claim, which has just been made publicly available at the court in London, and is suing the company, which the papers say owns the land and bridge, for compensation for her own injuries and for the loss of her husband. The accident happened on December 18, 2019, and the claim is for more than £750,000.

It is alleged the company allowed people to walk on the land despite there being no public right of way. The High Court papers say that the couple had been out walking their dog when the husband left the path and fell down a sheer drop which was hidden by bushes and shrubbery. His wife climbed down by a different route where she found him frightened, in severe pain and struggling to breathe.

She ran for help and then went back to her husband to wait for the emergency ambulance service, and watched the last moments of her husband’s life as he slipped into unconsciousness. She was present when he was pronounced dead after paramedics tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate him with CPR and other procedures.

The papers say that the company was liable for what happened and had breached its duties by failing to fence off the edge of the bridge until after the accident, allowing there to be a concealed and unprotected drop adjoining the path, and failing to inspect the bridge, path, and fencing which had fallen into disrepair.

The path was a permissive footpath, with a notice permitting access, according to the court papers but they say there was a risk of serious injury or death because of the sheer drop at the edge of the bridge, which was concealed and unfenced.

The company has claimed that the path was a public right of way, and that as a result, it had no duty of care to maintain the fence, according to the claim.

But the dead man’s widow says if it was a right of way, the company owed her husband a duty through the permissive access it granted, and if it was not a right of way, it owed him a duty under the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1975. She accuses the company of negligence.

The papers say the claimant and her husband were extremely close, and had been married for almost 20 years, enjoying a happy social and domestic life and seeing their four children and four grandchildren regularly.