UK News 09-11-2004 Suicide Driver Was Naked who: Chef Brian Drysdale what: Was naked when he killed himself on level-crossing where: UFTON NERVET when: Saturday snippet: "Chef Brian Drysdale left work and drove to a railway line where 40 minutes later a 100mph express ploughed into his car, killing him and six others," says The Sun. "After parking his Mazda 323 on the track, he sat NAKED and made a call on his mobile as a hero cop begged him to move." "He had been working in the kitchens at the Wokefield Park Conference Centre in Mortimer, Reading, on the day of the crash," says The Independent. "When his shift finished at 5.30pm - about the time the train was leaving Paddington - he drove less than a mile to the level crossing in Ufton Nervet." "We`re very surprised and very shocked by what has happened," says a member of the Conference Centre kitchen staff, quoted in The Guardian. "Brian seemed quite normal on Saturday, there was no clue as to what he was going to do." Unsurprisingly, much of the press focus is on the people who fell victim to his apparent decision to kill himself. In particular, The Mirror says the six passengers who died included "angelic nine year-old" Louella Main and her 38 year-old mum Anjanette Rossi. "It emerged that Louella was thrown out of a window seconds before Ms Rossi was killed in the most severely crushed carriage of the train," says Ian Johnson in The Scotsman. "The four others on the train who were killed were yesterday identified by police as: Emily Webster, 14, of Moretonhampstead, Devon; Barry Stevens, 55, of Wells, Somerset; Charlie Matthews, 72, of Warminster, Wiltshire; and train driver Stanley Martin, 54, of Torquay." [... more]

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