Slindon Common man, 23, who died in A27 collision ‘intended to end his own life’, inquest hears

George Hamilton-Green, of Mill Road in Slindon Common, died instantly after being struck by a car on the A27 several minutes after midnight on Sunday, June 3, 2019.

Coroner Karen Henderson recorded a conclusion of suicide.

She said: “I’m satisfied that George had quite severe mental health issues and was in fact suicidal...

“Such was his distress that he undertook an act and by that act sadly, tragically, intended to end his own life.”

She said a mental health assessment taken earlier that year had indicated that George had OCD, borderline personality disorder and emotional intensity disorder – but that he had declined any assistance to deal with his mental health issues.

A transcript of the 999 call made by George’s mother, Caroline, on the morning of June 3 to report him missing was read at the inquest into his death at Crawley Coroner’s Court on Thursday.

She told the call handler that he had been ‘very stressed’ the day before and said: “He was in a terrible state and kept saying he had lost his mind.”

He had talked in the past about going out into the A27 and being hit by a truck, she said, and had previously self-harmed and attempted suicide.

She had last seen George at around 11pm, curled up in a ball on the sofa with the cover over his head, and described him as being in a ‘very bad place’ and ‘the lowest I had ever seen him’.

Mrs Henderson said that despite his mother’s best attempts to protect him by locking the doors and gates, George was able to leave the house, climb the wall of the property and make his way to the eastbound carriageway.

“I’m satisfied that George was in extreme distress and that he deliberately ran in front of the car that struck him,” she said.

She was also satisfied that George was not just crossing the road, she said, adding: “He would have had ample opportunity to cross the road before or after the vehicle.”

Giving evidence, the driver of the car – Simone Osborne-Shaw, a business analyst – said she had left her office in Tangmere, where she had been working late on a project which was due to go live the next day, at around quarter to midnight.

She was driving home to Worthing when she said she suddenly saw a person, who looked like he was running into the middle of the road.

She swerved to the left and braked in an attempt to avoid him, but could not.

When police arrived at the scene, she was given an alcohol and drugs test – the latter of which showed positive for cocaine – and she was arrested.

She said she was ‘very surprised’ by the result as she had taken ‘only a small amount’ of the drug some time ago on Friday night.

“It was to keep me awake for the work I was doing,” she said. “It wasn’t enough to show up on a drug test or to affect my driving.”

She told the court: “I do not accept that I had any cocaine in my system that night.”

The court also heard that not all the guidelines stipulating how the drugs test should be carried out had been followed.

Mrs Henderson said that, while Miss Osborne-Shaw had used cocaine some time before the incident and had been having a conversation with her partner via a hands free device while driving, her actions ‘in no way contributed to George’s death’.

“It is infact the driver who sadly and tragically has been, for want of a better phrase, the innocent bystander and was desperately unfortunate that she was driving home she when she did,” she said.

“The driver took immediate avoidant action as soon as she saw George in circumstances where George would have seen the vehicle...

“The driver of the car did nothing wrong and holds no responsibility for the circumstances of George’s death.”

A post-mortem examination found that George sustained multiple injuries and gave the cause of death as head injury.

In a statement, his mother described him as a kind person: “He always put everyone else before him.”

He loved nature and dreamed of moving somewhere more peaceful where he could live as much as possible off-grid, rearing chickens and growing vegetables.

“My life has been totally shattered,” she said. “My heart is in a million pieces.

“We’ve always been there for eachother, just the two of us.

“I just want to wake up from this excruciating nightmare and be with him.”

After the inquest, the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that Miss Osborne-Shaw had been charged with drug-driving – but at a trial at Horsham Magistrate’s Court in December 2020, the District Judge found there was ‘no case to answer’.

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