Boy run over by farm vehicle died from father’s gross negligence, jury hears

A man unlawfully killed his three-year-old son when he reversed a defective farm vehicle over him, a jury has heard.

Neil Speakman, 39, was operating a telehandler machine at his farm in Bury, Greater Manchester, when the incident took place at about midday on July 16 2022.

Albie Speakman suffered catastrophic head injuries and was pronounced dead at hospital hours later.

The collision happened in a yard next to a small garden area at the front of the farmhouse in Bentley Hall Road, Walshaw, where a few minutes earlier the defendant had left Albie to play.

Speakman used the farm as a base for his log and woodchip business and had borrowed the heavy lifting vehicle from a neighbour to put woodchips into bags, Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court was told.

Opening the prosecution case on Tuesday, John Elvidge KC told jurors: “Neil Speakman told the police that he had seen Albie playing throwing sticks for his pet dogs to chase.

“Albie was unsupervised and the garden and yard area was open, unfenced and unguarded. The area was insecure so that this little boy was free to wander about into the yard where his father was working.”

The defendant had previously used the telehandler but Mr Elvidge said he had “received no training in using this kind of machinery and he had no interest or care in the health and safety implications of using the telehandler, or the grave risk he created to Albie”.

Mr Elvidge told the jury: “You will hear that the telehandler was defective. It was obviously missing one of its wing mirrors and the other mirror was so dirty as to be useless.

“It would also have been obvious to the driver that it had blind spots to the rear, and that there was no audible warning of when it was reversing.

“The prosecution case is that Albie died as a result of his father’s negligence which created a serious and obvious risk of death, and the circumstances of the breach by Neil Speakman of the duty of care which he owed his son were so exceptionally bad and reprehensible that the breach amounts to gross negligence.”

A health and safety inspector later examined the telehandler and found its various mechanical defects would have hindered safe operation, the court heard, and concluded it was “foreseeable that persons in the vicinity of the vehicle could be injured or killed when the vehicle was working”.

The inspection report added: “The operator would have had a restricted view of a person in certain positions near to the rear of the vehicle, more so a person of less than average height.”

Mr Elvidge went on: “The risk that Albie could be killed if the telehandler drove into Albie was obvious because it was big and heavy enough to knock a person over, especially a small child; and if driven into or over Albie it could obviously cause his death.”

The prosecutor said Speakman had “no regard” for the capacity of a three-year-old to understand risk or protect himself from harm.

Speakman’s “extraordinary attitude” to keeping Albie safe, Mr Elvidge said, was revealed when he went on to tell police: “He knew, he weren’t stupid .. it’s a farm isn’t it? It’s not a playground and Albie knew it weren’t, he knew his boundaries.

“He knew where to go and where not to go and what to go near and what not to go near.”

Jurors were told that Albie stayed on alternate weekends with Speakman who separated from the child’s mother, Leah Bridge, shortly after he was born.

Mr Elvidge added: “This is not a case where it is suggested that Neil Speakman intended or meant to harm Albie.

“We anticipate the real issue in this case is whether his negligence was gross. The defence deny that Neil Speakman’s negligence meets this very high threshold.”

Speakman has pleaded guilty to a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act in failing to ensure, so far as reasonably practical, the health and safety of Albie.

Mr Elvidge also told jurors about an incident in 2020 in which Speakman was said to have disregarded a warning from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) about the use of another piece of farm machinery with a lifting bucket attached.

The matter was brought to the attention of the HSE after the emergence of a video posted on social media which showed Speakman’s partner, Millie Barrack – then a teenager – inside the bucket in the air as the defendant moves the vehicle and is heard to say: “I’m going to drop you”.

A letter was sent by the HSE to Speakman warning him of the potentially fatal consequences, the court heard.

Mr Elvidge said: “The prosecution say that Neil Speakman had no regard to HSE guidance referred to in this letter, or indeed to any other HSE guidance.”

Speakman denies gross negligence manslaughter.

The trial continues.