Man unlawfully killed son, 3, when he reversed defective farm vehicle over him, trial hears

A farmer unlawfully killed his three-year-old son when he reversed a defective farm machine over him, a trial has heard.

Neil Speakman, 39, was operating a telehandler, used to pick up wood chippings, at his farm in Bury when he reversed and ‘drove over’ Albie Speakman at around midday on July 16 2022, a court heard.

The child - who had been hit while he played in the garden with their dogs - was left with catastrophic head injuries and was pronounced dead at hospital hours later, jurors were told.

At a trial at Minshull Street Crown Court, prosecutor John Elvidge KC said the incident happened in a yard next to a small garden at the front of the house where Mr Speakman had left his son to play. Mr 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, he said.

While Mr Speakman had used the machine before, he was not trained and had ‘no interest or care’ in the health and safety hazards of using the telehandler, or the ‘grave risk’ he created to Albie, the jurors were told.

The court heard the machine was ‘defective’, as one of the wing mirrors was missing and the other was ‘so dirty as to be useless’.

Mr Elvidge said: “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.”

The telehandler was later inspected by health