Police accidentally ran over subject of 999 call

Police officers accidentally ran over a man who they had been dispatched on blue lights to help, an inquest heard.

Edward Langstone, 55, was struck by four vehicles, including a marked Essex Police car, on an unlit section of the A120 at Coggeshall on 3 January on the morning after an evening of drinking.

The police vehicle was travelling "under emergency conditions" having received reports of a man walking along the road, an inquest in Chelmsford heard.

Area coroner Michelle Brown said Langstone "most likely" fell into the Colchester-bound carriageway before he was killed.

He had been seen "stumbling" and putting his thumb out for a lift in the moments before being struck, Brown said.

She said Langstone was wearing all black and had been lying in the road when he was struck by a Tesla at about 07:00 GMT that Saturday.

"We know he wasn't upright," the coroner said.

She added that the "most likely scenario" was that he had fallen into the road - "given he had toxicological reasons to be unsteady on his feet" - and he would have been hard to spot.

Langstone had been drinking with friends in Coggeshall on the previous evening.

He left his friend's partner's house at 06:00 and said he was going to get a taxi home to Clacton-on-Sea, but, "for reasons unknown", failed to do so.

Brown added it was not conclusively known "whether he'd fallen into the road, stumbled and then been hit".

Langstone was hit by a Tesla, VW Caddy, police car and then a Ford Transit, the inquest heard. The road was closed and did not reopen until the late afternoon on 3 January.

Police arrested a man in his 40s in connection with the collision, but were never able to identify which driver delivered the fatal strike to Langstone, the court heard.

"I think we have to conclude there's no evidence of third-party involvement," Brown added.

She ruled Langstone died from multiple injuries sustained in a road traffic collision.

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