A man unlawfully killed his three-year-old son when he reversed a defective farm vehicle over him, a jury has heard. Neil Speakman, 39, was operating a telehandler machine at his farm in Bury, Greater Manchester, when the incident took place at about midday on July 16 2022.
Albie Speakman suffered catastrophic head injuries and was pronounced dead at hospital hours later. The collision happened in a yard next to a small garden area at the front of the farmhouse in Bentley Hall Road, Walshaw, where a few minutes earlier the defendant had left Albie to play.
Speakman used the farm as a base for his log and woodchip business and had borrowed the heavy lifting vehicle from a neighbour to put woodchips into bags, Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court was told. Opening the prosecution case on Tuesday, John Elvidge KC told jurors: “Neil Speakman told the police that he had seen Albie playing throwing sticks for his pet dogs to chase.
“Albie was unsupervised and the garden and yard area was open, unfenced and unguarded. The area was insecure so that this little boy was free to wander about into the yard where his father was working.”. The defendant had previously used the telehandler but Mr Elvidge said he had “received no training in using this kind of machinery and he had no interest or care in the health and safety implications of using the telehandler, or the grave risk he created to Albie”.
