Death on the tracks for a Kiwi who cared

By ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE

New Zealander James Dean, who was electrocuted on a London Underground train line last November, would still be alive if he had not stopped to help a companion, his grieving father said yesterday.

Robbie Dean - national Formula One motorbike racing champion in 1989 - was at home in Tauranga when an inquest jury at Westminster Coroner's Court on Thursday delivered a verdict of death by misadventure.

Coroner Paul Knapman said it was "a simple and tragic story".

The tragedy happened just hours after 21-year-old James, a promising motorcyclist, had telephoned his father at 4.30am New Zealand time with the news that he had won a trial ride place in the British Supersport 600 series.

Upset at reports out of London describing Dean as "a drunken New Zealand student", the family yesterday showed the Herald the surveillance video tapes of James's last moments at Ladbroke Grove station just before 11.30 on a Sunday night.

The grainy footage shows the New Zealander dropping from the station platform to follow two other men across three sets of tracks to the opposite side.

Halfway across, Dean returns to help down a young woman. The pair start to run across the tracks and stumble, apparently because the heel on her shoe has broken.

With a train approaching, the two men on the far platform haul her up but Dean trips and falls on a live rail.

His family acknowledge that he should not have been on the track, but firmly believe he would not have known the line was electrified.

At the time, British Transport Police told the Deans (and journalists) that James Dean's actions in going to help the woman - who they thought was a stranger to him - were heroic.

When Robbie Dean travelled to London to bring home his son's body, he garnered all he could about what happened.

James had been in France for two months visiting family on his mother Claudine's side and chasing his dream of following his father and grandfather, Dixie Dean, to motorcycle fame.

He arrived in London the day before his death to visit a New Zealand friend.

He had taken her out for dinner before joining three Australian backpackers he had met the previous evening. The group of four took the wrong tube when they were trying to get back to the Pelican Pub in Fulham, where Dean was staying.

Getting off at Ladbroke Grove, they made the fatal decision to take a shortcut across the tracks.

The coroner's court was told that there would have been 630 volts in the line. Dean had 151mg of alcohol in his system (in New Zealand the alcohol limit for drivers is 80mg per 100ml of blood).

His father said he did not believe in heroes, but in responding to situations.

"Whatever the circumstances of James being on the tracks, one thing is certain: If he had not gone back to help the woman out, he would be alive today," his father said.