Man killed by hit and run driver on rural lane in early hours, inquest told

A MAN found dead in a country lane was the victim of a hit and run crash, a coroner has ruled.

The body of Kam Hulait, 46, of Greys Road, Henley, was discovered in Wyfold Lane, Kingwood, at 6.30am on Sunday, July 11, 2021. He had suffered fatal head and chest injuries.

An inquest on Thursday last week heard he must have been struck from behind by a vehicle which did not stop in the early hours.

Police and an ambulance were called by a driver who found him and had tried CPR but Mr Hulait was declared dead at the scene.

Oxfordshire Coroner’s Court heard that Mr Hulait, who was alcohol-dependent, had been hoping to meet a women friend in the early hours and had been “intoxicated”.

The coroner Nicholas Graham dismissed two other theories that he had either fallen in the road or had been struck by an animal.

The court heard that Mr Hulait had hoped to see Alex Sims and took a taxi from Henley to stables in Wyfold Lane. He had phoned Ms Sims, an animal chiropractor, who was also alcohol-dependent and vulnerable.

Mr Graham said: “The taxi driver said he seemed to be under the influence of alcohol and had drinks cans with him.

“He had asked the taxi driver to collect him when he failed to get into the house but as the taxi driver couldn’t find the stables, he had asked him to wait at the Unicorn pub but he never arrived.”

Mr Hulait’s body was found about 20m from the yard gate.

Ms Sims said she had known Mr Hulait for two years and would regularly speak to him outside the One Stop shop in Greys Road where he would often sit. She knew he had a drinking problem.

On July 10 he had called her after injuring his head when he fell outside the shop and said the bleeding from the back of his head wouldn’t stop. She asked him to visit the stables that night.

She called Chiltern Taxis in Henley at 1.15am the next day for a taxi to pick him up and then drop him at the Unicorn pub in Peppard Road.

The taxi driver, Altaf Malek, dropped Mr Hulait off at 1.30am.

About 20 minutes later, Ms Sims thought Mr Hulait was at the gates to the stables but the code wasn’t working so she asked him to climb over the gates, which were shoulder height, but he said it was impossible.

Ms Sims said: “I was shattered, I had drunk.”

She had then fallen asleep and only recalled being woken up the next day by friends who told her what had happened.

Daniel Hobbs, for Mr Hulait’s family, asked her whose idea it was for him to come to the stables.

She said it was her idea because she had bandages for his cut.

Ms Sims said she had been drinking wine with friends who left at 11.30pm and she was looking for a drinking partner so she arranged for Mr Hulait to come.

Mr Hulait had left messages on her voicemail asking to be let in but she was asleep by the time he had arrived.

At 2.03am, she called him when he was outside. Mr Hobbs asked: “Why didn’t you let him in?”

She replied: “Because I was even more tired but I told him how to get in.”

The pair then spoke twice more but Ms Sims said she didn’t remember this. Shefak Ahmed, the duty controller at Chiltern Taxis, said Mr Hulait booked a taxi to take him to the Unicorn at 2am and paid the fare with his phone. He was under the influence but that was normal for him.

When the taxi driver went to pick him up from the pub, Mr Hulait wasn’t there. The driver waited and then left.

Mr Hulait last unlocked his phone at 3.14am.

Mark Slater came across Mr Hulait’s body at about 6.30am as he was on his way to buy a puppy in Gloucestershire with his wife Julie.

In a statement, he said it was a foggy morning when he saw something in the road which at first he thought was rags that someone had fly-tipped.

Then he realised it was a person in the middle of the road, lying motionless.

He pulled up and tried CPR on Mr Hulait and called an ambulance. When the paramedics arrived they also gave him CPR but stopped when they realised he was dead.

Mr Slater said he did not see any signs of a crash, such as plastic debris from a vehicle or skid marks.

He said he went back to the site the next day to place some flowers and spoke to Ms Sims, who told him what had happened. She was intoxicated.

Dc Robert Simpson Jones, the chief investigating officer, said the most likely explanation for the fatality was that Mr Hulait was struck by a car between 3.13am and 6.30am and moved to where he was found.

He said: “He was highly intoxicated and died from head and chest injuries. He was lying in the road and someone drove over him. The lack of debris from the vehicle is unusual but not abnormal.”

He said there was a tyre mark but the police didn’t have any details of the vehicle.

There was a scattering of blood but this was probably caused by Mr Slater’s Range Rover driving through it and spreading it.

In a response to a question by Mr Hobbs, Dc Simpson Jones said a delivery driver van had driven along Wyfold Lane between 5am and 6am but the driver hadn’t seen anything and was not a person of interest.

Dr Matthew Lyall, a pathologist, said Mr Hulait’s injuries were puzzling.

He had suffered a potentially fatal impact to the head as well as fractures of the rib, spine, shoulder blade, collar bone and neck.

There was also some grazing on his scalp, face and a split in the scalp caused by blunt trauma which had caused excessive bleeding.

Dr Lyall said that Mr Hulait had reportedly fallen outside the One Stop shop before leaving for Wyfold Lane, which could explain some of the lacerations.

He said that injuries to the scalp tended to bleed a lot and Mr Hulait’s drinking could also have caused the excessive bleeding. Dr Lyall said it was not clear from the injuries what had happened.

“I cannot say if it was a fall, a vehicle or animal,” he said. “There is very strong evidence he was hit with a car.

“The injuries are entirely consistent with a vehicular collision but the circumstances were quite unclear.”

He said it was unlikely that Mr Hulait had died instantly but had crawled along the road as his knees were damaged and there was blood about 10m from where the body was found.

Dr Chris Langley, of the Bell Surgery, told the coroner that Mr Hulait had a history and of excessive drinking.

In 2015, when he was living with his parents, he was taken he taken to hospital after falling while intoxicated and suffering a cut.

At the time, he often drank and could not follow conversations. He walked slowly and his appetite was low.

At an NHS check in May 2021 a liver test showed he drank excess amounts of alcohol. He said he drank cider and would binge drink.

The following month he was offered a referral to Turning Point, which supports people with alcohol issues, but he was not interested.

In his ruling, the coroner said: said: “It’s clear to me that in the early hours Kam attempted to meet his friend, Ms Sims. While I don’t consider her statement to be particularly reliable, we know he was dropped off at the gates and tried to enter the stables but unfortunately was not able to climb over the gates.

“It seems Ms Sims was intoxicated, as was Kam.

“It is clear that having arrived at Wyfold Lane, Kam made a call at 2am to the taxi firm for them to collect him and that he was instructed to wait at the Unicorn but the taxi did not meet him.

“Kam was found with extensive injuries in the road at 6.30am.

“Dr Lyall and Dc Simpson Jones were reluctant to commit themselves to a theory but posited three hypotheses: a farm animal, a fall or a collision with a vehicle.

“My conclusion is that Kam was struck by a motor vehicle. The nature of the injuries and surrounding circumstances are not obvious to constitute a fall or animal incident.”

After the hearing, Mr Hulait’s brother Jazz said: “You’re never going to be satisfied but it’s closure for us. The hardest part was for our parents to go through this.

“Kam will truly be missed. He is missed by everyone. It's just hard living life without him now.”

His sister Sharni said: “I am satisfied with the verdict because it’s the truth. It was a road traffic accident and we knew that from the start.

“The delay has given us time to grieve. It doesn’t go away but it has given us time to just deal with what happened.”