Post by QPR Report on May 20, 2009 17:12:36 GMT
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Death of design student was a 'tragic accident'
May 20 2009 By Ellie Dyer
'INAPPROPRIATE behaviour' from Queen's Park Rangers youth players on an Earl's Court tube platform led to a tragic accident which left a 25-year-old student dead, an inquest jury has ruled.
Police initially treated the death of Tu Quang Hoang Vu in November 2006 as a murder.
The Kingston University architecture design student was slammed by a Piccadilly line train, after sharing the platform with four young QPR footballers who were on their way home from Hammersmith College.
Witnesses spotted Harry Smart, Kieron St Aime, Ramone Rose and Chris Arthur playing around on the platform.
At one point Mr Smart, then aged 17, stumbled and collided into Mr Vu, sending both young men into the path of a passing train.
Vu, originally from Vietnam, died of multiple injuries. Smart escaped with a fractured skull – which he claims left him with amnesia.
Due to an upgrade of CCTV at the station, the lead-up to the fatal fall lay hidden in a camera blind spot.
British Transport Police spent two years painstakingly creating high-tech images to reconstruct the incident.
But at Westminster Coroner's Court on Monday deputy coroner Shirley Radcliffe ruled that the footage did not answer the 'puzzles' surrounding the death.
She also confirmed that the Crown Prosecution Service would not be pursuing any criminal charges against the boys.
Dr Radcliffe ordered a jury not to consider whether it was an unlawful killing, ruling that they must return an open verdict or one of accidental death.
She said: "I'm sure they are going to have to live with the fact that they have been under suspicion for a long time and have possibly, in some way, contributed to the death of Mr Vu."
The jury spent just 30 minutes deliberating before returning a narrative verdict that 'Mr Vu died, following inappropriate behaviour on the platform, as a result of an accident'.
The young footballers, some of whom were accompanied by their parents, slapped each other's hands and smiled with relief after the verdict was read out.
Dpt Coroner Shirley Radcliffe said: "I would like to extend our condolences to Mr Vu's family. He was a young man whose life was cut short tragically."
Detective Superintendent Ashley Croft, from the BTP, said: "The investigation was limited because of the CCTV blind spot."
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