My husband and Mike Lynch were colleagues. They died 42 hours apart

Times

5 hours ago

Karen Chamberlain was sitting on a bus on her way to see her dying husband in hospital when she got a text message telling her the Bayesian yacht had sunk.
It was August 19 last year and the British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, 59, and six others, including his daughter Hannah, 18, had been killed after a freak storm sank the family's luxury vessel off Sicily.
Only two days earlier, Karen's husband, Steve, 52, had been hit by a car while out on a 17-mile run. His head injuries were unsurvivable.
The timing of the two men's deaths was an extraordinary coincidence. Chamberlain and Lynch had been co-defendants in a US fraud trial over the $11.7 billion (£8.6 billion) sale of the tycoon's software firm Autonomy to Hewlett Packard in 2011. If convicted, Lynch would have faced more than 20 years in an American prison; Chamberlain would have faced a shorter sentence. Both had been acquitted in June.
Ten weeks later, they were both struck by freak accidents 1,700 miles apart. Only 42 hours or so separated the two tragedies.
In her first newspaper interview, Karen, 55, said: 'If anyone had made a movie about it they'd have gone, 'Well that's the most ridiculous ending', but unfortunately it's what it was, just a horrible, horrible coincidence.'
She said: 'I got a text on my phone from a friend that knew the family … they said, 'I'm really sorry to have to tell you but Bayesian has sunk and Hannah and Mike are missing'. I just couldn't believe it. When I got off the bus, I called and said, 'What on earth is going on?' and they said, 'There was a storm and the boat sunk'.
'It was just absolutely horrendous … You're devastated for Steve, you're then devastated for them and everybody else. It's almost just unbelievable. I couldn't process it really.'
The Chamberlains, who had one month earlier celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, were friends with Lynch and his wife, Angela Bacares, who survived the disaster, and had been guests on their 'incredible' yacht. Karen had also been on the Bayesian with Bacares on one occasion when Lynch was not allowed to leave the UK as he awaited extradition to the US.
The news of Steve Chamberlain's accident had reached Lynch and his guests on the Bayesian. Karen had received condolence messages from Bacares and Judy Bloomer, the wife of Jonathan Bloomer, the former chairman of Autonomy's audit committee, before it sank. The Bloomers both died on the boat.
Last week, the inquest took place in Alconbury Weald, Cambridgeshire, into Chamberlain's death. The coroner ruled it was the result of a road traffic collision.
He had been six miles into a run from Ely back to Longstanton, Cambridgeshire, where the family live, when he was hit by a Vauxhall Corsa driven by a woman, 49, who was on her way to go shopping in Newmarket, Suffolk.
Chamberlain, who was Lynch's chief financial officer, had been crossing the road between two parts of a bridleway when he was struck by the car, which had just crested a humpback bridge. The car was driving within the 60mph speed limit, the inquest was told.
He was thrown 15ft in the air, a witness said. The coroner said: 'In his [the witness's] opinion, the driver wouldn't have seen anything until she was on top of the rise [of the bridge] and wouldn't have had a chance to stop.'
The coroner shared the family's concerns that the humpback bridge was an 'irredeemable barrier' to visibility for pedestrians and other road users, and is writing to Cambridgeshire county council about it before deciding whether a report to help prevent future deaths on the road is necessary.
Karen wants the 'terrible position' of the footpath crossing moved and the speed limit lowered to 40mph.
Chamberlain had not always been a runner. Karen said he had taken up the sport initially to raise money for charity after her father, Stan Tokley, who had Parkinson's and dementia, died in 2019 at the age of 77. Chamberlain realised it helped him deal with the stress of being investigated after he was charged with fraud in the same year that his father-in-law died.
Karen said: 'The moment he went out there running he would de-stress. That's when he did the most of his thinking about the trial. It was brilliant. It not only kept him calm but also helped him process stuff.'
The running quickly escalated. He ran hundreds of miles, competing in ultra-distance races in Snowdonia, the Peak District and the Lake District and spending hours meticulously planning his routes.
Karen said: 'He loved the mountains, trails and just working routes out. Steve would never do anything recklessly ever. He listened to podcasts because that helped him and always wore one earbud — but never wore both — so he could always hear his surrounding area.' On the day of the run, he had, as usual, only taken one earbud.
The timing of the two men's deaths was not the only bizarre coincidence, Karen said. The night before, the couple had had a barbecue at home with their daughter, Ella, 24, and her partner who were visiting for the weekend. The subject of death came up.
'We just had a really lovely evening, sat in the garden. It was really warm, just reminiscing, laughing and it was the oddest thing,' Karen recalled. 'Ella said something about inheritance. I can't remember what the comment was and Steve says, 'You'll have a long time to wait for that because I'm not going anywhere soon', and then we got into this conversation about dying.'
Karen told the family that her will said she wanted to be buried in woodland but she had changed her mind and now wanted to be cremated. 'Steve then said, 'Actually I'm the same, I don't want to be buried now either, I'll be cremated'. And then I'd said, 'I bet you want some of your ashes scattered on the mountains of Wales'. And he went, 'Yeah that's what I want'.'
Some of his ashes will be scattered by his son, Teddy, 21, who is going to take part in the last running race that Chamberlain entered before his death, the Snowdon SkyRace, on June 21. It would have been Chamberlain's 53rd birthday.
For Karen, who works in risk management, there is a terrible cruelty to have nearly lost a husband to a prison sentence in America, got him back briefly, only to lose him so soon afterwards. The case had dominated their life for a decade, from the investigation beginning in 2014 to the trial finally ending in June. After he was charged in 2019, Chamberlain was endlessly flying back and forth to the US.
They had so much time to catch up on, both as a couple and as a family. 'The first thing he said, especially with the kids, he said, 'Right, we've got to make memories'. We were all going to the Latitude festival [in Suffolk] so we got six tickets [one for each of the family, as well as their children's partners]. We booked a holiday — just me and Steve — to go to Greece. We had lots and lots of plans.' The family will still be going to the Latitude festival next month 'to celebrate him', Karen said.
The stress of the three-month trial — and the length and cost of the whole excruciating legal process — put enormous strain on the family. Chamberlain's father, Grenville, 74, who lives 15 minutes away from his daughter-in-law in the Cambridgeshire countryside, described the elation when his son and Lynch were found not guilty. He said: 'After a dozen years of hell, it was an incredible relief.'
The couple had only been back together in the UK for less than three months before tragedy struck. On the morning of the accident, he got up early at 7.30am to go running, while she was asleep in bed. 'He left really early. So [my final words] were almost, 'Enjoy your run' kind of thing. You don't expect it to be your last words, do you? It's funny. You try and replay that. Where it's just a normal morning, normal memory, and then if only you'd known that was the last conversation because I was probably still asleep. It was probably just a grunt.'
When two police officers came to her house, she initially thought they were coming to discuss their postbox, which had been stolen a few days before. 'I said, 'Are you here because of the postbox?' and they just said, 'No. Are you Mrs Chamberlain, Steve Chamberlain's wife?' Your world falls apart, doesn't it?'
Chamberlain's life support machine was switched off in the early hours of August 20 to allow time for the donation of his organs to be organised. His liver and kidneys were donated to three men.
'He'd have donated all his body if he'd had the opportunity. It was lovely. He's managed to save three people.'