A motorcyclist who was over the drink-drive limit and travelling at up to 90mph hit and killed a foreign correspondent for The Times, a court heard.
Melissa van der Klugt, who had been reporting from south Asia and Africa for The Times, The Sunday Times and the BBC, was struck just after 8pm on August 30, 2019 while walking home in Battersea, south London.
She died of her injuries at the scene. The motorcyclist, Christopher Perry, 40, was taken to hospital in a critical condition but died the next day.
A pre-inquest review at Westminster coroner’s court into Van der Klugt’s death was told toxicology reports showed Perry had 108mg of alcohol in his blood, exceeding the legal limit of 80mg. He had been travelling at 74mph-90mph in a 30mph zone, the court heard.
Diana and Kees van der Klugt, her parents, who are solicitors, are to ask the coroner to find a verdict of unlawful killing based upon Perry’s speed and blood alcohol level. Police said he might have been charged with causing death by dangerous driving had he survived. Bernard Richmond QC, the assistant coroner, told the court: “It’s clear, on any reading, that the speed at which the driver was going was such that even if there had been more notice he probably would not have had a chance of stopping.” Richmond shook his head after hearing the speed limit was 30mph.
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“Once you’re double the limit without any justification you are in seriously difficult territory,” he added.
Van der Klugt, 34, known as Missy to family and friends, was educated at St Catherine’s, a private school for girls at Bramley, Surrey, before switching to a sixth-form college in Godalming.
She had taught English at a monastery in the north Indian state of Sikkim before receiving a first-class degree in 19th and 20th-century African history at Durham University. She read for an MA at King’s College London, where she researched partition on the subcontinent. She turned down a training contract with a prominent law firm to join The Times, where she helped to edit the Daily Universal Register and became deputy obituaries editor.
She also worked for several years on the newspaper’s foreign desk, before leaving to follow her dream as a freelance foreign correspondent in India.
For the BBC, she produced radio pieces including for From Our Own Correspondent on Radio 4.
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Richmond said her Times obituary would be read into the record at her forthcoming inquest. “This is somebody who used words as a living, and this is just a lovely obituary,” he said.
Her family, including her brother Edmund, who joined the proceedings via a video link, are expected to question whether a blood transfusion Perry received at the scene of the crash could have diluted the alcohol in his bloodstream and led to a lower ethanol reading. A full inquest was opened and adjourned for Perry.
PC Jeremy Archer and Detective Inspector Helen Craine of the Metropolitan Police are to be called as witnesses for Van der Klugt’s inquest.
