British millionaire investor, 62, is killed in front of his horrified daughter when his motorbike 'strays onto the wrong side of the road' and slams into a van on Spanish road
Paul Gerard Tustain, 62, died yesterday after his rented BMW motorbike strayed onto the wrong side of a road near Pamplona before slamming into a van.
The London-based entrepreneur and his daughter, who was travelling on another motorbike behind him, are understood to have been touring the country.
They were heading for the town of Logrono when the tragic collision occurred, according to local police.
A spokesman for the Navarra Foral Police said: 'The dead man's daughter saw he had strayed onto the wrong side of the road and tried to alert him with hand signals but it was too late.
'He smashed head-on into a van that couldn't do anything to avoid the collision.
'A post mortem will show whether he might have suffered a health problem that could have caused him to go onto the wrong side of the road.
'Otherwise it's likely to have been a fatal distraction. The force of the impact was brutal.'
The tragedy happened on a stretch of the NA-1110 road between Azketa and Iratxe at around 1.30pm local time in a municipality called Iguzquiza, a 35-minute drive from Pamplona.
Emergency services were called at around 1.40pm yesterday.
They sent ambulances and a medicalised helicopter to the scene as well as police and firefighters, but there was nothing they could do to save his life.
Pictures from the crash scene showed the white van with its front smashed in by the side of the road next to the dead man's motorbike across the tarmac.
A spokesman for local firefighters said: 'We were called yesterday afternoon about a head-on collision between a motorbike and a van on the NA-1110.
'The man on the motorbike died and the occupants of the van were unharmed.'
A spokesman for a regional emergency services coordination centre said: 'A motorcyclist died Thursday afternoon after colliding with a van on the NA-1110 road, in the municipality of Iguzquiza.
'The emergency management centre received notice of the accident at 13:38 hours on Thursday and sent firefighters to the scene along with a medical team, an advanced life support medicalised ambulance, a basic life support ambulance, a medical helicopter and police traffic patrols.
'The accident occurred when the motorcyclist collided head-on with a van at kilometer point 42.4 of the NA-1110 road.
'The emergency services mobilized could do nothing to save the life of the motorcyclist, a 62 year old man, who died at the scene.
'His body was taken to the Navarra Institute of Legal Medicine for an autopsy. A police investigation into the accident is underway.'
The accident happened four days after a British couple aged 78 and 58 died in a horror crash in Boca de Huergano in the province of Leon, around four hours west of yesterday's tragedy, after their Ferrari skidded off the road and plunged into a river.
The pair, driving a UK-plated vehicle, were found by rescuers after they reached the black Ferrari 488's remains lying in the Yuso river.
They were reportedly part of a large convoy of around 20 other Ferrari owners.
The group had arrived in the city of Leon, the capital of the province, the day before the crash.
Police said earlier this week an investigation into the cause was still underway.
Paul was the founder and chairman of BullionVault, the world's largest online bullion investment service, and WhiskyInvestDirect.com, which organised bulk crowdfunding of in-barrel Scotch whisky maturation.
Before venturing into the finance and investment sector Paul founded SAM Systems which specialised in mid and back office functions of the banking and stockbroking sectors.
Paul told how he got into gold bullion after seeing Gordon Brown selling Britain's gold reserves in 2001.
He was quoted in the Times in 2016 as saying: 'The fool was selling gold every two weeks, they were selling so much that they destroyed the price.
'I eventually bought three of the gold bars; the big chunky ones that James Bond tosses around. It was probably the best purchase I ever made.'
He invested £275,000 rustled up from 30 family members and angel investors to establish BullionVault, a peer-to-peer site that allowed investors to buy small stakes in gold bars.
A decade later it looked after gold worth than $1.3 billion - equivalent to about 11 per cent of the Treasury's reserves, with a pre-tax profit of nearly £4million.
A BullionVault employee said today: 'We are in shock at Paul's very sudden death.
'We will be releasing a statement in due course but at the moment we are still grieving.
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