Runner who died in crash took up sport after fraud charge in US, inquest told

Independent

2 days ago

A much-loved father who was fatally struck by a car while out running got into the sport after he was charged with fraud in the US alongside tech billionaire Mike Lynch, an inquest has heard.
Chief financial officer Stephen Chamberlain was crossing a road between two parts of a bridleway when he was struck by a Vauxhall car that had crested a humpback bridge.
The 52-year-old was an associate of Mr Lynch, who died after the Bayesian superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily on August 19 last year.
Mr Chamberlain sustained a traumatic head injury in the collision on the A1123 near Stretham, Cambridgeshire, on August 17 last year.
The injury was deemed unsurvivable and his life support was withdrawn three days later.
Both Mr Chamberlain and Mr Lynch were cleared of a fraud charge in June last year following a trial at a federal court in San Francisco, California.
Mr Chamberlain's widow Karen Chamberlain said in a statement that her husband got involved in running after he was charged with fraud.
'He discovered it helped him mentally stay calm and focus on what was ahead,' said Mrs Chamberlain, in a statement read by lawyer Sally Hobson, representing Mr Chamberlain's family.
She said her husband would 'meticulously spend hours planning his routes' and competed in ultra-distance races.
He was 'safety conscious', she said, and he would wear one earbud but leave the other ear free.
'That was no exception on the day – his other earbud was left at home,' Mrs Chamberlain said.
She said he had been home from the US for two months and was 'making up for lost time, enjoying getting his life back'.
She said that on the day of the collision he had planned to run 17 miles, starting in Ely and ending in Longstanton, Cambridgeshire.
He was just over six miles into his run when he was struck by a car.
The coroner directed that the female driver of the car should not be named at Tuesday's hearing in Alconbury Weald, Cambridgeshire.
The driver said, in a statement summarised by area coroner Caroline Jones, that as she 'approached the bridge she proceeded down the incline' and a man 'suddenly emerged into the road'.
She said she saw Mr Chamberlain 'looking to his left away from her and only looked to his right just before the collision'.
She said she had 'braked hard and steered to the nearside', but 'he was too close' and the front offside of the vehicle collided with him.
She said she had been driving within the 60mph speed limit, had been on her way to a shop in Newmarket, Suffolk and had 'no time pressure', the coroner said.
Motorbike rider Grahame Cornwall, who witnessed the collision, said in a statement that Mr Chamberlain was thrown 'approximately 15 feet' up in the air.
'In his 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 said.
'He said the entire incident must have been a matter of seconds.'
Police forensic collision investigator Pc Ian Masters said it was 'not an ideal crossing point by any stretch of the imagination'.
Asked by the coroner if it was his view that it was not an avoidable collision, Mr Masters replied: 'Yes, that's correct.'
The coroner recorded a conclusion that Mr Chamberlain died as the result of a road traffic collision.
She said she shared the concerns of the family that the humpback bridge is an 'irredeemable barrier' to visibility for pedestrians and other road users.
She said she would write to Cambridgeshire County Council as the highways authority to request further information before deciding whether a report to help prevent future deaths was necessary.
Mr Chamberlain's daughter Ella said in a statement to the inquest that her father was the 'perfect role model in every way'.
His son Teddy said in a statement: 'He was the glue of our family, always ready with an answer.'
'The mental and physical strength he showed was beyond anything I could imagine,' he said.
He added that he was the 'greatest dad I could ever have asked for and I'm so proud to be his son'.
Mr Chamberlain's father, Grenville Chamberlain, told the inquest: 'Steve was very well respected in every walk of his life.
'His funeral was attended by 500 people.'
Mr Chamberlain was the co-defendant in a US trial alongside Mr Lynch, where both men were cleared last year of conducting a massive fraud over the sale of software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.
HP acquired Cambridge-based Autonomy, founded by Mr Lynch in 1996, for 11 billion dollars (£8.35 billion) but later wrote down its value by 8.8 billion dollars (£6.68 billion) and asked the US justice department to investigate fraud.
Mr Chamberlain, a former vice-president of finance at the company, was accused of artificially inflating Autonomy's revenues and making false and misleading statements to auditors, analysts and regulators in 2018.
Both he and Mr Lynch were found not guilty of the charge in June last year following a trial at a federal court in San Francisco.
In a statement outside court, read by lawyer Elena Abraham, the family said they 'still have questions unanswered'.
'We will be inviting the police to refer the case to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration,' the statement said.
Mrs Chamberlain said outside court that after her husband was cleared he 'came home and we just had our lives ahead'.
'Steve, his first thing was 'we've got to make memories for the kids and family and friends, we've just now got to do lots of things to make memories'', she said.
'And very sadly they were taken away from us.'