A motorist who drove over an injured motorcyclist and dragged him 62 metres near Princes Risborough thought she had hit rubbish in the road, an inquest heard yesterday.

Father-of-one Duwayne Pocock, 24, was riding along the A4010 in Askett on his motorbike on February 24 last year, when he “lost control” of the Yamaha to the nearside and collided with a fence, before being “deflected” through the air and landing back on the road.

He was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford with a serious head injury but died there on March 1 after developing pneumonia and a blood clot that had travelled from his leg to his lung.

Dr Olaf Biedrzycki, forensic pathologist, told the inquest at Bucks Coroner’s Court on Wednesday afternoon that the “extensive” pneumonia and pulmonary embolism had occurred because he was “immobile due to head injury.”

Telling the inquest what happened on the evening of the collision, driver Patricia Moore said she was returning home towards Askett along the A4010, a road she had driven regularly, at around 9.55pm when she came across what she thought was ‘refuse’ in the road around "three or four yards" ahead.

Driving at around 35mph on the 40mph stretch, she continued on but positioned the car “so the rubbish would go under the car between the wheels.”

She said: “Then I heard grinding and scraping noises coming from the car and I thought it might be the gearbox but I couldn’t be sure. I remember shaking because I thought I might have hit an animal.

“I got out of the car and went to the rear and I found a pair of legs coming out from underneath it.”

When asked by one of Mr Pocock’s sister's why she did not slow down or stop after hitting what she thought was rubbish, Mrs Moore said: “I did not realise it was a person in the road otherwise I wouldn’t have carried on.

“If I had moved to my nearside, there was possibility I could have gone on the footpath or if I had overtaken I could have collided with a car on the other side of the road.

“When I got out of the car I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

Mrs Moore told the inquest she "always" wore glasses for driving, had yearly eye tests and had last had one around "seven or eight" months before the incident happened.

Stephen Moffatt, collision investigator, said that marks on the ground, caused by Mr Pocock’s crash helmet scuffing the floor, was 62 metres long, indicating how far he had been dragged by the car.

When asked if there would have been time for Mrs Moore to stop the car before colliding with Mr Pocock on the “poorly lit” section of road, he said: “I don’t think there would have been any time to put any sort of plan into action that would have allowed her to stop before what she thought was a bin bag.”

Bucks Free Press:

Picture by ARM Images.

Dr Biedrzycki told the court that Mr Pocock had suffered a grade one diffuse axonal injury in the accident, which had caused ‘wires’ in his brain to tear, but could not be sure whether colliding with the fence post, the road, or the car had caused it.

Coroner Richard Hulett recorded a narrative conclusion, saying any one of the “very complex” events could have caused his head injury.

Speaking after the inquest, Mr Pocock’s family paid tribute to the landscape gardener, who left behind and fiancée and a three-year-old son.

They said: “We are gutted, we have lost a son, a brother, a father and a grandson. He always helped everyone, he did lots for charities and he will be missed by everyone. We just can’t understand why he has been taken away from us.

“We love him, we miss him and we always will. He will forever be in our hearts and our minds, especially his fiancée Sammy and his son Aaron.”