A Bideford milkman who left his van on a hill to make a delivery in Westcombe heard the handbrake release and saw the vehicle moving backwards, the local magistrates were told last week. 

Terance George Frederick Cox, 69 Clovelly Road, was said to have made a statement that had tried to get into the van to stop it, but was prevented from doing so by the slippery road service. The runaway van, said Police Sergt Honeywill, crashed into the doors of a garage, damaging them and a vehicle in the garage. A Ministry vehicle examiner found that the brakes were efficient on the road, but that a pawl on the handbrake mechanism was worn. When the brake was fully applied the handbrake released itself. 

For using the vehicle with defective brakes Cox was fined £2 and the owners of the van – Bideford Dairies Ltd – were similarly fined for the same offence. Mr P J Evans, managing director of the dairy, said there had been no complaint about the brake and apparently there had been no similar occurrence previously. The vehicles were regularly serviced but it would be difficult to detect such a fault. The manufacturers had now altered this type of brake. 

Gazette article dated 5 April 1963