Thin skull may have contributed to man's fatal fall

Popular Frilsham parish councillor, Jim Hodgeon, died in January after a fall at his home, an inquest heard

A POPULAR Frilsham parish councillor may have died in a freak accident because he had a thin skull, an inquest heard on Wednesday.

Forty-two-year-old Jim Hodgeon was found dead on January 22 at the Beechfield Lane home he shared with his wife of 12 years, Sandra Wilkinson.

The discovery was made by Ms Wilkinson when she returned home from the Oxfam shop in Pangbourne where she worked.

The hearing in Newbury was told she vainly tried to revive her husband until an ambulance arrived but Mr Hodgeon was already dead.

Ms Wilkinson said she discovered a telephone answering message left at 2.45pm by his mother Jean and added: “She was worried for him as she had spoken to him that afternoon and he didn't sound well.”

Police found no suspicious circumstances but noted a deep wound on Mr Hodgeon's head and blood on a nearby book shelf.

They concluded that Mr Hodgeon had stumbled in the master bedroom and caught his head on the edge of the shelf.

Post mortem tests revealed Mr Hodgeon died from a brain haemhorrage caused by the fall and that he had an unusually thin skull.

Assistant deputy Berkshire coroner Anna Burnside recorded a verdict of accidental death.

After the hearing Ms Wilkinson said that her husband, a self-employed software engineer and keen amateur astronomer, was a popular figure to whom villagers would go for help with their computer problems.

He worked in the kitchen at the village fete and served on the parish council's affordable housing team.

The March meeting of the council began with a minute's silence in his honour and villagers have planted bulbs around the oak tree at the top of Beechfield lane in his memory.