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Islington Tribune - by PETER GRUNER
Published: 13 March 2009

Train victim ‘a drinker’

A MAN killed by a high speed train on the tracks at Finsbury Park station had a potentially lethal amount of alcohol in his blood, an inquest heard yesterday (Thursday).
Guillaume Martinez, 49, died of multiple injuries after being struck by a fast train passing through the station shortly after midnight in the week before Christmas last year.
Witnesses saw Mr Martinez, an unemployed French national with a history of alcohol problems, trying to pull himself onto the platform moments before he was hit.
Train driver Colin Harding told the jury at St Pancras Coroner’s Court that despite sounding his horn and braking Mr Martinez “didn’t seem to have the energy” to get out of the way in time.
“I was approaching Finsbury Park on a slight curve... I saw somebody walking along the track. I applied full brakes and he tried to get on the platform but didn’t quite make it.
“I hit him and that was it,” he said.
Mr Martinez, of Brighton, had come to London that weekend to visit his friend, Bernard Wilson. Mr Wilson, an artist from Green Lanes, told the court he had drunk “eight or nine pints and maybe some shorts” with Mr Martinez in the hours before his friend died.
He left Mr Martinez in Camden at 9pm in a “very intoxicated” state, under the impression Mr Martinez was going to carry on drinking to celebrate his recent birthday and then return to Brighton.
The jury heard how a man in “a woollen hat and tatty clothing” was seen acting erratically at Finsbury Park station around midnight before walking down the ramp onto the lines.
Coroner Dr Andrew Reid said alcohol levels found in the deceased “would be enough to kill” a person unused to alcohol.
The jury returned a unanimous verdict of death by misadventure.

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