Driver's botched DIY repair caused fatal crash, inquest is told

A PROMISING city medical student was killed in a crash after a DIY car repair failed, an inquest has been told.

Rachael Veale, a student at the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, died of multiple injuries at Derriford Hospital, Plymouth, in the early hours of January 19.

The inquest heard yesterday that she had been fatally injured in a crash the previous evening on the A38 at Ivybridge, near Endsleigh Garden Centre.

Rachael, 21, was a rear-seat passenger in a 1993 black Volkswagen Golf which swerved off the road and hit a tree.

The inquest at the Council House, Plymouth, heard that driver Alex Pye was taking his girlfriend Emily King and three other female medical students from Exeter to Truro.

In a written statement, PC Rachael Ward, a patrol officer at the scene, said Mr Pye asked her which wheel had come off the vehicle.

When she told him it was the rear offside one, he replied: "I changed the wheel. It was my fault. I don't know what I could have done wrong."

Mr Pye told the inquest he had decided to replace worn rear-wheel bearings and had taken advice from mechanics and practised at a breaker's yard before changing the offside bearing by lamp-light the evening before the accident.

Using a socket set, he tightened the nut holding the bearing in place and then drove the car for 25 miles at varying speeds, checking to see if the bearing was getting hot.

He said everyone except him was asleep when the car suddenly swerved violently, skidded off the road and he felt a violent blow.

Despite being in pain, he checked the condition of his passengers, including Rachael.

He added: "I want to say to her parents I am sorry; if I could change it I would, and if I could swap places, I would."

MPC Mark Wilkinson said the Crown Prosecution Service had decided not to charge Mr Pye with any offence.

Police vehicle examiner John Snow said the rear offside wheel-bearing had collapsed after being over-tightened during assembly — "a relatively simple mistake by an inexperienced person".

Collision investigator John Hitchcock said that as the rear wheel loosened, the tyre shredded on the car's bodywork and burst, causing the vehicle to swerve.

Recording a narrative conclusion, Plymouth and South West Devon coroner Ian Arrow said the car's offside wheel-bearing failed because there was insufficient free play due to over-tightening.

The car then crashed and Rachael suffered fatal injuries.

Rachael's family issued a joint statement urging people to become organ donors.

They said: "Rachael may then be able to continue to save lives, as her spirit will live on through others."