Sheila Margaret Body

Sheila Margaret Body crashed her car into the River Axe, however, it was heard that no reason could be determined for her having swerved off the road into the river and an open verdict was returned.

Her cause of death was given as drowning.

Her body remained in the car for six hours before it was found by her father in a rhyne.

She had lived at Poplar Farm in Biddisham and had been returning from a Young Farmers' meeting in Highbridge at the time. She had left the meeting at 10pm.

Her father said that she often borrowed his car since she started driving four years earlier. He noted that at the point where the car had gone into the water that there had been a bend but that Sheila Body had been a competent driver and had known the lane well.

He said that he had been expecting Sheila Body home at 11pm and so he waited up so that he could put the car away, but when she didn't arrive he went to bed. However, he said hat he awoke at 3am and found she wasn't in her room and so he called the Burnham Police and then began to search for her himself.

He said:

Tyre marks found on the road showed that Sheila Body had swerved, but that she had corrected her steering and then, after riving 55 feet over marshy ground, the car had overturned into the River Axe. However, it was stated that what had caused her to swerve remained a mystery, in spite of exhaustive searches.

A friend of Sheila Body said that Sheila Body gave her a lift home from the Young Farmers' Club in Highbridge to Mulberry House in Edithmead and that she had been 'giggling and laughing quite a bit' as she drove. She said:

A police constable said that he found the car resting on its roof in the old River Exe flanking Biddisham Lane leading to her home at Poplar Farm. He said that the car had since been inspected and found to have been in good running order.

Another police constable said that markings on the lane and on the grass verge indicated that the car had got out of control. He said:

He said that there had been a distance of 71 feet six inches from the point where the car had left the lane on one side to where it entered the water on the other.

He added:

The Coroner told the jury: