Doctor Died After Being Hit by Van at Clayponds Hospital
Court hears allegation that delivery driver failed to check blind spot
The delivery bay by the car park at Clayponds Hospital. Picture: Google Streetview
April 24, 2025
A trial at the Old Bailey has been hearing details of the event that led up to the death of a doctor in the car park of Clayponds Rehabilitation Hospital.
62-year-old Dr Anjum Afshan was hit and run over by a delivery van reversing out of the hospital entrance at 3:48pm on 12 January 2023. She had just finished a shift and was walking to catch a bus.
The driver, Gulamo Remtula aged 58 from Harrow, who was delivering food to the hospital, allegedly failed to use his mirrors to check a blind spot. Dr Afshan was hit from behind and thrown forward, but the van continued to reverse and pinned her under the rear axle.
Robert Holloway, a colleague of Dr Afshan, witnessed what happened and rushed back into the hospital building to get help but she was declared dead an hour later. A post-mortem examination later determined the cause of death to be crush injury to the chest and traumatic asphyxia.
Mr Remtula is now facing trial for causing death by careless driving. According to a report in the Evening Standard, Frederick Hookway for the prosecution said Mr Remtula was reversing a Mercedes Sprinter van with a box trailer which did not have an audible reversing alarm or a rear facing camera.
The prosecution says that this type of vehicle has a blind spot which means that someone 20 metres behind the midline of the vehicle cannot be seen in its mirrors and therefore additional checks should have been carried out. This is also the advice given in the Highway Code.
He told the jury: "In this case, the prosecution invite you to conclude the driving was careless because the defendant reversed through a car park without making adequate checks of his blind spot, and so was inattentive before moving off.
"He knew pedestrians shared this space with his vehicle and so it was incumbent upon him to make sure that no-one was behind his van before he began to reverse.
"There is no real question it was the incident involving the defendant's vehicle that caused the death of Dr Afshan."
Mr Remtula told the police after the incident that he had seen Dr Afshan as she left the building but then lost sight of her. He claims to have checked his mirrors but not seen any obstacles and the first time he was aware
The trial continues.
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We've always done that and won't be changing, in fact we'd like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we'd be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you'd like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |