Coroner of Inquests Jayne Hughes has found that, although there were similarities between two fatal sidecar crashes, the location wasn’t the cause in either instance.

Both sidecar crashes occurred at the same location, Ago’s Leap, within the space of a week during last year’s TT. The two incidents claimed the lives of French men César Chanal and Olivier Lavorel, and English father and son Roger and Bradley Stockton.

Following the inquest into the death of César Chanal two weeks ago, Mrs Hughes had said she had found no issue with the location, but she was mindful that she would be looking into a crash which occurred at almost the exact same spot.

She said she would revisit this after the inquest into Roger and Bradley Stockton.

In her concluding statement of the Roger and Bradley Stockton inquest on Friday, Mrs Hughes said that the location was not a causing factor of the crash.

Both inquests heard evidence from Scott Duncan, DoI highways lead designer, who explained that the road was deemed acceptable for the high speeds of TT competitors under regulations.

She also referred to the evidence given by David Molyneux, an experienced sidecar racer, that none of the other competitors raised concerns about the location.

She found that the two sidecar crashes that occurred at Ago’s Leap were a ‘tragic coincidence’.

Roger Stockton, aged 56, had been driving the sidecar, and his son Bradley Stockton aged 21 was his passenger, when the vehicle crashed on June 10 2022.

In her closing statement, Mrs Hughes said that it was a combination of factors that caused the collision of Roger and Bradley Stockton’s sidecar.

She said that there was a distortion of the fairing on the Stocktons’ vehicle.

The fairing is an external structure added to increase streamlining on a high performance vehicle.

Mrs Hughes said that this distortion was exacerbated by the strong wind conditions and occurred periodically which weakened the fairing.

She added that this would have caused the vehicle to veer right, when Roger Stockton turned the vehicle left in response to this, it caused tyre contact with the bodywork.

The fairing acted as a sail through strong winds, she said.

She added that the bolt holding the fairing in was in place at the time of the crash, however it was never found, which was unsurprising due to the impact of the devastation.

Although the bike had been black flagged before the incident (on separate days), no issues were found with the bike.

Mrs Hughes said that the deaths of both Roger Stockton and Bradley Stockton, were deaths by misadventure.

She added that she had no appropriate recommendations for the safer running of the sidecar races.

The only recommendation that she could give was that they don’t run at all.

But she acknowledged that such a decision would have a great impact on the island community, and people all over the world.