A cyclist was killed in Bolton when he was knocked off his bike by a disqualified driver.

Kevin Harmon was aged 47 when he died on July 1, 2021.

Mr Harmon, a keen cyclist, was riding down Edge Lane in Horwich when he collided head-on with Mubashar Ahmed, who was driving in the opposite direction.

He was declared dead at the scene.

On May 17, an inquest into his death was held at Bolton Coroners Court where Robert Harmon told the hearing of his brother's love of cycling.

He said: “He worked in Manchester and would cycle daily to work.”

Coroner Stephen Teasdale asked Robert about “detours” that Kevin would take when going home. He said his brother would go on them “two, three, four times a week”, for example going up towards Winter Hill past his house on Smithills Croft Road.

He added that he was “very fit”.

On July 1, 2021 at 5.15pm, paramedic Peter Cavanagh was on duty when he was called to a report of a crash on Edge Lane.

When he arrived at 5.34pm, there was a parked car with the cyclist in front of it, and facing him was the “vehicle that had collided with the cyclist”.

A member of the public was also giving him CPR. Paramedics used defibrillators but agreed that his injuries “weren’t compatible with life” and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Pathologist Dr Justin Nkonge told the inquest of Mr Harmon’s injuries, which he described as “not survivable”.

He added: “There is a severe haemorrhage and no blood is going to the organs, so death occurs very quickly.”

He gave Mr Harmon’s cause of death as traumatic chest injuries.

Mubashar Ahmed, the driver of the car, gave evidence at the inquest. He confirmed that he had been driving the Saab which was involved in the collision.

Charges of death by dangerous driving had previously been brought against Mr Ahmed at the crown court, but were dropped. He instead pleaded guilty to lower charges of driving without insurance and driving while disqualified at magistrates court, the inquest heard.

He told the hearing how the Saab’s exhaust had “fallen off” and the electric motor for the power steering “wasn’t working” which made the steering “heavy”.

Coroner Teasdale asked him what the purpose of the journey was.

Mr Ahmed said: “The exhaust was smoking and we wanted to get the DPF – the diesel particulate filter – cleaned. We were trying to clean that out, and as we were going up the hill it started having problems.”

He told how he was with his brother. They decided not to go any further up the hill and his brother went to pick up a tow truck to take the Saab away.

However, Mr Ahmed decided to drive the car the rest of the way up the hill due to “blocking traffic off” due to the location, after having waited “a while” for his brother to return.

He told the court that he was driving up at around 20mph, as Edge Lane is a tight country lane with only room for one car.

He added: “I am going up at 20mph, I have got the windows open and the grass is pretty tall so I can’t see around the bends. I was listening out and could not hear anything.”

Mr Ahmed said that once he got around a bend on the lane, he did not see Mr Harmon coming the other way on his bike and they crashed.

He added: “When I realised the accident had happened the car stopped moving, the engine was gone and lights were flashing.”

He then performed CPR on Mr Harmon and tried to call 999 but had bad signal on his phone, before a member of the public came and took over.

PS Paul Terry, the forensic collision investigator, gave evidence about his report into the crash.

Judging by skid marks at the scene, he judged Mr Ahmed as having been travelling at between 21 and 24mph before the crash, while GPS from Mr Harmon suggested that he had been moving at around 23mph.

He said that there was a “likelihood” that the driver and cyclist could have seen each other when they were four seconds away from meeting.

PS Terry added that the car was suffering from one of its tyres being bare, “showing cord”, making it not road legal, and that one of its brakes was worn. However, he stipulated that this would not have had an adverse effect on what happened.

Mr Harmon was said to be wearing a black shirt, which he said would have blended in with hedges, and a white helmet, which would have blended in with the light-blue sky, it being a sunny day.

The family counsel asked PS Terry if it was more likely than not that a driver would have been able to identify Mr Harmon.

He replied: “Realistically it would have been difficult for anybody to clearly identify that there was a pedal cyclist approaching.

“The view and the size of Mr Harmon, the distance they were travelling at would have been difficult but he could have seen him if he was looking in that direction.

“But there are circumstances we can’t predict, the riding position, what else was going on in that field.

“It is difficult for anybody to see him at that point, but they could have.”

He said Mr Harmon’s view would also have been obscured.

Coroner Stephen Teasdale gave a conclusion of a road traffic collision.