Dad’s crash tragedy

HAPPIER times: Sam with girlfriend Daisy Ann Connell

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A YOUNG dad’s fatal car crash was the result of a tragic accident — even though medics finding a bloodstained suicide note in his jacket pocket.

Sam Guiney (24), from Moorside, lost control of his white BMW on a left-hand bend in Ripponden Road, Oldham, an inquest heard. Despite the letter - found at the hospital - senior coroner Simon Nelson said he wasn’t satisfied Sam intended to take his life at the time of the incident.

He said: “The letter of intent has to be taken very seriously indeed. He was going through a very difficult period, but whatever his intention when writing the note, I can’t be certain that immediately prior to the accident he had intended to take his life.

“The number of miles and hours on the road and the difficult terrain, a desperately tired Sam was not concentrating and went off the road. It is hard to accept and it didn’t make sense, but I don’t believe that his death arose by reason of the intention to take his own life.”

On May 11 police rused to the crash in which the car had collided with safety barriers and hit a stone wall, then flipped on to its roof. Local people tried to help the unconscious Sam, but he had to be cut free by emergency services. He was later pronounced dead at Salford Royal Hospital.

Sam had been driving back to Norfolk, where he lived with girlfriend Daisy Connell, after dropping his son with his former partner.

The utilities worker had been on anti-depressants and struggled with debt for years. The note was scrawled on the back of an annual financial statement from a loan taken out in his late teens.

Girlfriend Daisy said Sam had told her if he did take his life, he would “do it in his car on the moors.”