From the
Wiltshire Times (29/08/2010):
A 19-year-old man, who died after falling into a train and was then carried more than 100 miles, turned to drink and drugs after his granddad^s death just three months before.
The body of James Anthony Sprayson was discovered by staff at Foster Yeoman freight yard, on the Brook Lane Industrial Estate, Westbury, on the morning of October 7 last year.
At his inquest at Trowbridge Coroner^s Court last Thursday, a jury found that his death was an accident. The court heard how the teenager, from Acocks Green in Birmingham, had cannabis in his system at his time of death.
Mr Sprayson^s grandmother, Anne Stevens, with whom he had lived for some time, said: ^James was at home when his granddad died. He never recovered from his granddad^s death. He started to talk to himself in his room and started hearing voices. He also said he had spoken to his granddad. He stayed in bed all day. I know he smoked cannabis but I don^t know how much.^
The unemployed man^s mother Katya Ruston, who is a counsellor, described her relationship with her son as ^up and down^.
^It was due to the chaotic behaviour sometimes in the last 12 to 18 months before he died,^ she said. "I wasn^t aware he smoked cannabis until his granddad died. I^ve seen psychotic behaviour. He said music was talking to him. My son didn^t see there was a problem and didn^t want to seek support. I made the doctors aware and felt it was a drug induced psychosis. The doctors couldn^t do anything until James accessed their services. He did like to drink and when he drank it was to excess but not for long periods of time. He^s always been close to his granddad. He would have been depressed. He used substances more to help him through it and, because he was using them more, his behaviour escalated.^
The court heard how police recovered CCTV▸ footage which showed Mr Sprayson get onto the stairwell roof at Accocks Green Station in Birmingham six minutes before the train passed through the station at 12.45am. Detective Inspector Mick Southerton of British Transport Police said: ^The CCTV appears to show a lone individual on the roof of the bridge and the next image is of the light of the train. I^m satisfied that he was on that flat roof.
^I struggle to find another example where a person has ended up being carried in a wagon.^
The train arrived at Westbury just after 4.30am and the body was discovered by David Fox, a machine operator for Foster Yeoman.
He said: ^I went to take another bite out of the ballast and I saw something. I couldn^t make out what it was. I could then see a baseball cap which I thought was strange. I got out of the cab and climbed up the ladder into the wagon. That^s when I could see it was a full body. I climbed in and that^s when I realised.
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