Climber cut his friend’s rope and sent him to his death as he fought to save himself on clif f
A CLIMBER fell to his death after his friend had to make the agonising decision to cut a safety rope to save himself.
Malcolm Hall, 51, had abseiled halfway down a dangerous cliff face as the pair searched for gemstones when disaster struck.
The experienced climber got into difficulties with his ropes and was left dangling precariously 180ft above the rocky shoreline.
His panic-stricken friend Joseph Faichney, an inexperienced climber who was on the clifftop, was left struggling desperately to cling on.
But faced with the ‘impossible situation’ of whether to be dragged into the sea with his companion or attempt to save his own life, Mr Faichney had no option but to sever the rope.
An inquest heard that Mr Hall was the ‘author of his own misfortune’ for not taking appropriate safety measures.
The grandfather, who had a basic abseiling qualification, had taken Mr Faichney climbing on the north yorkshire coast at Whitby as a treat for his 28th birthday last July.
The pair were looking for jet, a black gemstone that is a form of lignite – brown coal. But the shale cliffs are ill - suited to abseiling and are largely scaled by risk-taking climbers in search of the stones, which are sold to jewellery makers or collectors.
Before descending, Mr Hall secured a rope on three safety points – the cliff edge, a boulder that he wrapped the rope around and Mr Faichney.
But minutes after Mr Hall went over the side of 375ft Kettleness cliff, his friend felt the rope tied around his waist starting to tug. The rope loosened from the boulder and Mr Faichney was dragged perilously close to the edge of the drop as he desperately tried to hold the weight of his friend.
As the seriousness of the situation became clear, Mr Faichney – who had only ever abseiled as a boy scout – began screaming for help.
In a statement read to Teesside Coroner’s Court, he said: ‘I was thinking that hopefully he will get near the bottom. I was holding it as tight as I could but it was digging into my back.
‘I was screaming and screaming and thinking that he was going to pull me off the top. I was in sheer panic.’
After cutting his friend loose, Mr Faichney was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. He was released without charge when the Crown Prosecution service decided he took the only reasonable course open to him by deciding to save his own life.
Assistant coroner Malcolm Donnelly told the hearing on Wednesday: ‘He was in an impossible situation and had to save his own life.
‘He was a novice and relied on the knowledge of the more experienced man.’
Detective sergeant Mark Proctor, who investigated the incident, said none of the anchor points used by Mr Hall was safe.
He also warned that the pair’s hunt for jet – a popular pastime in the Whitby area – was technically theft as they were on the 15,000- acre Mulgrave Estate without permission.
The estate, once leased by supermodel Elle Macpherson, has now put up signs warning people not to search for jet. After the case, Detective sergeant Proctor issued a warning to those seeking to make money from collecting jet.
‘This highlights the danger involved in trying to excavate jet from a cliff side,’ he said.
‘Obviously we would appeal to people to use a little bit of common sense not to put themselves at risk in this type of activity.’
The coroner concluded that the death of Mr Hall, who lived in skelton, north yorkshire, was misadventure.
In a statement released after Mr Hall’s death, his family – who knew him as Mac – said: ‘Our family was devastated by the sudden and tragic death of Mac.
‘It is a small comfort to us knowing that Mac died doing something that he loved.
‘He will be terribly missed by us and his wide circle of friends who we would like to thank for their kind words of comfort, love and support.’
‘I was screaming
in sheer panic’