A well-loved local character died after being knocked down by a van on a wet night in Wantage, his inquest heard.

Victor ‘Vic’ Comley, 83, was crossing Charlton Road on the way back from his regular visit to The Bear Hotel when he was struck by the VW van on November 16 last year.

Staff at the Market Square hostelry said you could set your watch by Mr Comley’s arrival. Having got to the pub at around 4.55pm, he drank two pints then got the bus home shortly after 5.20pm.

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Wearing dark clothing, Mr Comley got off the bus outside the Charlton Park garden centre, where he was very well known to staff, at around 5.26pm. CCTV showed him cross the road at a slight angle, heading towards his house on the opposite side of the street, when he was hit by the VW van.

The driver of the van, Mark Goodwin, who was heading towards Wantage town centre and driving below the 30mph speed limit, described seeing a figure ‘just step out in front of me’ around a metre in front of his vehicle.

“The figure turned to look at me and I saw it was an elderly man. I don’t know where he came from. He was just standing there,” he said in a police statement read to the inquest by senior coroner Darren Salter on Wednesday (April 26).

“I tried my hardest to brake. I had no time to swerve anywhere. It was over in seconds – if that.”

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Mr Goodwin, who told police in his statement that he had been in no hurry, said: “I keep going over it in my head; was there anything else I could have done? He just walked out in front of me.

“I want the man’s family to know how sorry I am. I wish I could turn back the clock to start that journey just a minute later.”

Retired bricklayer Mr Comley suffered a cut to the head, thought to have been caused when he fell to the ground. An off-duty police officer, Laura Mabbott, stopped at the scene and conducted chest compressions until the arrival of the emergency services.

His head injury was not in itself serious. But the Home Office pathologist responsible for conducting Mr Comley’s post-mortem, Prof Ian Roberts, concluded that in the absence of any other cause of death, the concussion had resulted in a cardiac arrhythmia that led to his death.

The cause of death was recorded as a head injury contributed to by an underlying condition of ischemic heart disease.

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Crash investigator PC Murray McLean told the inquest he believed the crash, which took place on a wet night when road conditions were poor, was caused by Mr Comley’s failure to correctly judge the speed or distance of the traffic.

Several witnesses described recognising Mr Comley, who was born in Wantage and was a well-known character in the town. Knee operations had given the keen gardener a distinctive gait and he walked with a stick.

The victim’s GP said she had often seen him walking ‘briskly’ around town, telling the inquest in a statement: “He will be missed.”

Coroner Mr Salter said: “We’ve heard a bit about Vic and how well known and popular he was. It’s a very sad case.”

He recorded a conclusion of death by road traffic collision.