A HAMPSHIRE pensioner died after he was run over by his own car after he failed to apply the handbrake fully, an inquest heard.

Retired council clerk John Burrows, 81, became trapped under the Vauxhall Corsa on the sloped driveway of his home in Headley on April 2.

Neighbour Roslyn Linse told the hearing at Basingstoke that she was in her garden when she heard a scream and saw the car rolling down the driveway of the bungalow belonging to Mr Burrows, who had worked for Woking Borough Council, and his wife, Sylvia.

She said: "I heard a scream or a shout, I looked up to see my neighbour's car rolling very slowly down the drive.

"The car came to a stop and I ran across the road. I saw John was lying beneath the car, I saw his face scrunched up near the tyre."

Mrs Linse said that she called for the emergency services and knocked on the door to alert Mrs Burrows to what had happened.

She said that an air ambulance had not been able to land on a nearby green because of a fete and had to land in church grounds instead and she added that the emergency services "seemed to take a long time" to arrive.

She added: "John was a good friend and neighbour and will be missed by the whole neighbourhood, he was a very fit man, it was just a tragic accident."

PC Steve Wootton, of Hampshire Police, said that the car had been tested and no defects found but he said that if the handbrake was applied with only "four clicks" rather than the full five, it would not hold the vehicle, which weighed 1,100kg and it would start to roll down the drive.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, Andrew Bradley, coroner for north Hampshire, said: "John was behind the car, whether the handbrake was applied or not applied sufficiently, it's quite clear the car starts to roll back, there's this automatic reaction where you try to stop it and I am sure that's what John did.

"He is behind the car trying to stop it, he's knocked down by the weight of the car as it is rolling backwards, he falls to the ground and he is effectively scrunched under the car and breaks his neck and he asphyxiated because he is not able to breathe at that point."

He added: "It was a very tragic set of circumstances."