'Growing concerns' over children riding scramblers, inquest hears

The coroner at the inquest of a nine-year-old boy who died after two scramblers collided has said there is a "growing public safety concern" around children riding scramblers in unregulated settings.

Charlie Joyce's bike crashed head-on with another scrambler, driven by a 13-year-old boy, at a park in the Dunclug area of Ballymena, County Antrim in June 2022.

Both boys were taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast where Charlie died as a result of his injuries. The other boy had critical injuries.

Delivering her findings, coroner Anne-Louise Toal found that no adults were supervising at the time of the collision.

"It's clear from this inquest that there are very, very tragic consequences that can arise from riding such motorcycles in areas that are undesigned for them, and especially without supervision," she said.

"And also it's clear that this is a growing public safety concern.

"These are very powerful machines. And I would urge any parents who have either bought their children or indeed teenagers these motorcycles, or are intending to buy or thought about buying them, to familiarise themselves, number one, with the legalities and, number two, with the potential dangers."

At Friday's inquest, the coroner Anne-Louise Toal said that the State Pathologist, James Lyness, had determined the cause of death was as a result of head, chest and abdominal injuries.

Ms Toal added that the crash was caused by both boy's not seeing each other until it was too late to take evasive action.

The inquest earlier heard that the bike was not supposed to be ridden by minors and was also not designed to take pillion passengers.

A forensic crash investigator told the inquest that, because of the topography of the scene, the boys riding the two bikes would have had clear sight of each other only two seconds before the crash happened.

The two boys, who did not know each other, had not been riding together or racing prior to the crash, the court heard.

Giving evidence, Constable Chris Frazer, who was one of the investigating officers, said when he arrived it was "a difficult scene to manage" as there was a lot of people around.

He said Charlie Joyce had "non-survivable injuries" and he believed that he had been travelling on a "pit bike type" motorcycle when the collision occurred.

Constable Frazer said the collision occurred on a grass area near the playpark in Dunclug Park.

DNA samples were gathered at the scene, and forensics carried out investigations.

Sergeant Jennifer Braiden, in the Police Service of Northern Ireland's specialist unit for investigating fatal crashes told the inquest that driving scrambler bikes in public places was illegal.

She said there had been several juvenile deaths in Northern Ireland in recent years linked to the use of off-road vehicles.

Sergeant Braiden added that her team are conducting a large piece of work on dangers of offroad vehicles, which she described as a "province wide problem" which the PSNI struggle to police.

She said their figures show there have been several juvenile deaths in the past few years due to collisions involving off-road vehicles.

"It's really important to for people to educate themselves so that young people are wearing the appropriate safety gear and are being supervised at all times when on these types of vehicles," she added.

Giving evidence, Mr Ian Hynes, a forensic scientist who examined the scene of the collision and compiled a report on the crash, said there was nothing to indicate a loss of control for either vehicle.

He said there was also nothing to indicate any defects with either bike which could have contributed to the crash.