An inquest heard that a man died when a friend pushed him 12 feet to the ground as a joke at the driving range.
Conner Groom, 22, fell 3.7 meters from a bay at Chigwell, Essex’s TopGolf.
Conner, who was from Clacton-on-Sea, went over the edge of the safety nets on the first floor of the range and hit his head. He died five weeks later from a spinal injury.
The Essex Coroner’s Court heard that Conner and his friends had been drinking all night before they got to the venue.
When the friends got to the safety nets, they played jokes on each other by pushing or nudging each other to fall on them.
Seven times before Conner was pushed by an unnamed friend, someone in the group had pushed him or tried to push him.
One of Conner’s friends pushed him, but he didn’t land on the net. Instead, he went over the edge and hit the ground about 12 feet below.
After getting hurt badly in the back, he was taken to the Royal London Hospital.
Sadly, his condition got worse, and on January 25, 2022, he died from his injuries.
“NOTHING RIDICULOUS”
Detective Inspector Lydia George from Essex Police told the inquest that police had spoke to several people at the scene and looked at the CCTV footage.
DI George said, “All of the CCTV footage shows them in a good mood with no signs of fighting.”
“The friends are shown trying to push each other into the safety net several times. There was no doubt that it was a joke.
DI George said this happened more than once and that a security guard came to talk to the group about how they were acting.
The detective said that the man who pushed Conner had nothing to do with the other pushing incidents.
DI George went on, “[Conner’s friend] said he was going to push Conner into the net right before the fatal push.”
“It was said in a funny way.” He pushed him when he ran up to him. It took two hands to push.”
After a long stay in the hospital, DI George said that a hypoxic brain injury caused by a traumatic spinal cord injury was thought to be the cause of Conner’s death.
After the death, DI George said that Essex Police talked to the Crown Prosecution Service and Conner’s family about whether to press charges against his friend for the push.
The court heard that the police eventually decided not to press charges of manslaughter because the “evidential test was not met” and the only goal of the push was for Conner to land on the safety net.
DI George also said, “Conner Groom’s parents didn’t want his friend to be charged.”
“They believed that Conner would not have wanted to support any action over him as they are good friends.”
When Conner died, Graham Jarvis, who is a senior environmental health officer for Epping Forest Council, looked into TopGolf and its safety procedures.
He told the judge that the venue had changed its rules after the terrible event. For example, the signs had been updated, and there would be “zero tolerance” for people who push people into the safety nets.
Mr. Jarvis also said that the Epping Forest Council was happy with all the changes that had been made at Topgolf and that the venue had not been fined.
Coroner Lincoln Brookes said he was sure that no one in Conner’s group meant to hurt him and that his friend’s only goal was to get to the safety net.
The case was called a “terrible tragedy” by Mr. Brookes, who wrote down a conclusion of misadventure.
