The coroner at Reading Town Hall heard how Frederick John Morton, who lived in Ploughlands, Bracknell, was due to attend a doctor’s appointment last July when he was struck down by a runaway Vauxhall Zafira in the car park of St Mark’s Hospital in Maidenhead.

Mr Morton, 79, who had both legs amputated in 2003, did not see the car coming towards him until it was too late. Witnesses described seeing the car slowly roll down the sloped car park towards Mr Morton, who had been asking for directions to the mobility department.

Virginia Stalley, an auxiliary nurse, said Mr Morton refused her offer of help to get across the car park and described how he tried but failed to push himself out of the car’s way.

Sergeant Dean Franklin, of Thames Valley Police, was one of the first on the scene and used his baton to smash the car window and apply the hand brake. In a statement he said: “The vehicle was locked and secure and had no driver. I smashed the window with my baton and found the hand brake was flush to the central console.” Mr Morton was attended to by a doctor in an air ambulance at the scene but was pronounced dead from multiple injuries sustained in the collision, which fractured all of his ribs and left him with cuts and bruising.

Both a police investigator and an expert in braking systems agreed the only way the car would have rolled from its space was if the hand brake had not been applied, and Coroner Peter Bedford ruled that this was what led to Mr Morton’s death.

In his verdict, Mr Bedford said: “His injuries were sustained when he was struck by an unmanned car as he crossed the car park. The car had been parked and left in a space without the hand brake being applied.

“After a few minutes, the car inexplicably began to move, consequentially to Mr Morton moving across the car park.”