Driver in Fatal Collision With Mike Lynch’s Business Partner 2 Days Before Superyacht Sank Can’t be Named, Coroner Rules

An inquest into the death of Stephen Chamberlain, Lynch’s co-defendant in a U.S. fraud case, hears the ’safety conscious’ runner was killed crossing a road.

Stephen Chamberlain, who was killed while out running, in an undated handout photo from Cambridgeshire Police. PA

The driver of the car that struck and killed Stephen Chamberlain, the business partner of Mike Lynch, two days before the tycoon’s superyacht sank, cannot be named, a coroner has ruled.

Chief financial officer Chamberlain was the co-defendant in a massive fraud trial in the United States alongside tech billionaire Lynch, with both being acquitted of all charges before they died last August.

Chamberlain was out running near his Cambridgeshire home on Aug. 17, 2024 and was crossing a country road between two parts of a bridleway when he was struck by a Vauxhall car that had crested a humpback bridge, an inquest heard on Tuesday.

The 52-year-old was a longtime associate of Lynch, who died after the Bayesian superyacht sank in suspected high winds off the coast of Sicily on Aug. 19 last year. Six others, including Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Hannah, died when the 56-metre long Bayesian went down in the early hours of the morning.

Chamberlain sustained an “unsurvivable” traumatic head injury when the car hit him on the A1123 near Stretham, Cambridgeshire, and died three days later after his life support was withdrawn.

Cleared of 15 Charges

Chamberlain and Lynch were cleared of 15 charges of fraud and conspiracy last June following a high-profile trial at a federal court in San Francisco, California.

Chamberlain’s widow Karen said in a statement that her husband took up running following the charges as a way to counteract stress.

“He discovered it helped him mentally stay calm and focus on what was ahead,” she said in a statement read to the court by lawyer Sally Hobson, representing the family.

She said her husband would “meticulously spend hours planning his routes” and competed in ultra-distance races.

He was “safety conscious,” she said, and he would wear one earbud but leave the other ear free so he could hear the traffic.

“That was no exception on the day—his other earbud was left at home,” Karen Chamberlain said in her evidence, adding that he planned to run 17 miles that Saturday.

She said he had been home from the United States for two months and was “making up for lost time, enjoying getting his life back.”

Stephen Chamberlain's widow Karen (2nd right) and father Grenville Chamberlain (right) speaking outside court after his inquest in Cambridgeshire on June 3, 2025. Sam Russell/PA Wire

He was just over six miles into his run when he was struck by a car, the court heard.

The coroner directed that the female driver of the car should not be named at the hearing in Alconbury Weald, Cambridgeshire.

The driver said in a statement summarised by area coroner Caroline Jones that as she “approached the bridge she proceeded down the incline” and a man “suddenly emerged into the road.”

She said she saw Chamberlain “looking to his left away from her and only looked to his right just before the collision,“ and had ”braked hard and steered to the nearside,“ but ”he was too close” and the car struck him.

The coroner said the driver had been driving within the 60 mph speed limit as she drove to a nearby market.

Road signs in the village of Stretham in Cambridgeshire, where Stephen Chamberlain was fatally struck by a car whilst out running, pictured on Aug. 20, 2024. PA

Crossing Point ‘Not Ideal’

Motorbike rider Grahame Cornwall, who witnessed the collision, said in a statement that Chamberlain was thrown “approximately 15 feet” up in the air.

Police forensic collision investigator PC Ian Masters said it was “not an ideal crossing point by any stretch of the imagination.”

The coroner said she shared the concerns of the family that the humpback bridge is an “irredeemable barrier” to visibility for pedestrians and other road users.

Concluding that Chamberlain died as the result of a road traffic collision, the coroner said she would write to Cambridgeshire County Council to request further information before deciding whether a report to help prevent future deaths was necessary.

Chamberlain’s daughter Ella said in a statement to the inquest that he was the “perfect role model in every way,“ while his son Teddy paid tribute to his father’s ”physical and mental strength.”

Undated image of Mike Lynch (R) and his daughter Hannah, who both died when the superyacht Bayesian sank off Sicily on Aug. 19, 2024. Family handout/PA Wire

Sale of Autonomy

Just two months before their deaths, Lynch and Chamberlain were cleared of conducting a massive fraud over the sale of software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.

HP acquired Cambridge-based Autonomy, founded by Lynch in 1996, for $11 billion, but later found its true value was $2.2 billion and asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate, claiming its value had been artificially inflated.

Chamberlain, a former vice president of finance at the company, was also accused of making false and misleading statements to auditors, analysts, and regulators in 2018, in addition to the charges related to the sale of the company.

Lynch, who was made an OBE for services to enterprise in 2006, was extradited to the United States for trial following a High Court battle and the intervention on his behalf by a number of MPs, including Sir David Davis.

Worth an estimated £850 million, Lynch was a former adviser to then-Prime Minister David Cameron and sat on the board of many high profile organisations, including the BBC.

In 2018, Autonomy’s former chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, was found guilty of fraud in the United States and sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay a $10 million fine.

‘Unanswered Questions’

In a statement outside court, read by lawyer Elena Abraham, the Chamberlain family said they “still have questions unanswered.”

“We will be inviting the police to refer the case to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration,” the statement said.

Karen Chamberlain said that after her husband was cleared he told her they had to “make memories for the kids and family and friends,” to make up for the time he had spent in San Francisco.

“And very sadly they were taken away from us,” she said, alluding to the fact that Lynch and her husband had died within a day of each other.

An Italian investigation into the sinking of the Bayesian is ongoing, with the vessel still submerged.

James Cutfield, a 51-year-old New Zealand national who was captain of the yacht, has been questioned twice under suspicion of manslaughter and culpable shipwreck. Two other crew members have also been questioned, although no charges have yet been made in relation to the sinking.

The Bayesian yacht docked at a port in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, in a file photo. Illustration by The Epoch Times, @dannywheelz via TMX/Reuters

Superyacht Described as ‘Unsinkable’

A salvage operation resumed last month after a Dutch diver, Robcornelis Huijben Uiben, was killed on May 9 during preliminary attempts to recover the wreckage.

Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was among 15 survivors to be rescued from an inflatable raft, along with five guests and eight crew members.

Lawyer Christopher J. Morvillo, from the firm Clifford Chance who helped to acquit the tycoon following his 12-year legal battle, was among the seven who drowned when the vessel went down, along with his partner Neda Morvillo, the yacht’s chef Recaldo Thomas, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy, and Mike and Hannah Lynch.

The investigation will seek to determine how the British-flagged luxury yacht deemed “unsinkable” by its manufacturer, sank within sight of the shore in around 15 minutes. A nearby sailboat remained largely unscathed.

Owen Evans and PA Media contributed to this report.