A coroner has warned of growing public safety concerns around children riding scramblers in unregulated settings as she delivered findings in the inquest of a schoolboy who died after a collision between two off-road bikes.
Nine-year-old Charlie Joyce died in hospital hours after he was involved in the crash with another scrambler, which was ridden by a 13-year-old boy, in Ballymena, Co Antrim, in June 2022.
An inquest in Belfast heard that the incident happened on the brow of a hill on a grassy area beside a playpark in the Dunvale/Dunclug area of the town just before 5pm on the evening of June 16.
Delivering her findings, coroner Anne-Louise Toal found that no adults were supervising at the time of the collision.
The two boys, who did not know each other, had not been riding together or racing prior to the crash, the court heard.
Ms Toal said a young girl had been riding as a pillion passenger on the scrambler bike ridden by Charlie when the collision happened.
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.
In her findings, Ms Toal said: “I find that neither child had sufficient time to avoid the collision at or near the brow of the uphill section after recognising the presence of the other, causing them to collide head on.”
Ms Toal found that Charlie, a pupil at St Brigid’s Primary School, died from head, abdominal and chest injuries.
“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.
“As we can see here, Charlie was only nine years old, and his life has been tragically cut short by the results of the collision.”
Earlier, the coroner’s court was told that Charlie was riding on a flat piece of grass approaching the brow of the hill while the other boy was riding up the hill towards the brow when the crash happened.
The inquest also heard that the two bikes had been removed from the scene of the crash before the emergency services arrived – something that a police officer said impeded the initial forensic examination.
Police later recovered the damaged bikes from houses in the area.
The coroner was also told that a large crowd was at the scene when police and ambulance personnel arrived but only one eyewitness was ultimately willing to give a statement to police – a young boy.
Excerpts of the boy’s interview with police were read to the court. The boy said Charlie and the boy on the other bike “didn’t see each other”.
“They both turned the same way and just went straight into each other,” he told officers.
The 13-year-old boy who was riding the other scrambler was badly injured in the crash.
Afterwards he told officers he did not remember the collision or anything else from the day of the incident.
A sergeant 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.
The officer said the PSNI was undertaking a significant piece of research among its officers across the region to assess the scale of the issue.
“There’s absolutely no doubt that illegal use of these off-road vehicles is a massive problem, it’s province-wide,” she said.
“PSNI do have a difficulty in trying to police that for many reasons, particularly young children are out on public roads or footpaths or footways or public greens on these vehicles, which are only designed really to be driven on tracks where they’re in a controlled environment.
“Certainly, it’s a much enjoyed past time, but so long as it is controlled and safety is the main priority here.”
