A former Oxford academic whose invention made him an overnight millionaire has been trampled to death by a herd of cows.
Brian Bellhouse, 80, was killed by the animals while walking alone in a field in Guestling, near Hastings in East Sussex, on Monday.
The alarm was raised by another walker after his screams were heard. It is thought that the cattle became agitated and charged at him. Paramedics administered CPR and an air ambulance attended, but Bellhouse was pronounced dead at the scene.
He lived about five miles away in Winchelsea and it was not clear why he was walking in the field.
Police said the death of the former Magdalen College academic was not suspicious and details have been passed to the coroner.
A Sussex police spokesman said: “An 80-year-old man died after being found trampled in a field of cattle at Church Lane, Guestling, on Monday.
“Police and paramedics performed CPR after being called at 11.02am and an air ambulance landed at the scene, but he was sadly pronounced dead at 11.46am.
“There are no suspicious circumstances and the matter has been passed to the coroner’s officer.”
A spokesman for Magdalen College confirmed the death of Prof Bellhouse.
He began a degree in mathematics in 1957 and obtained his DPhil in engineering science in 1964 and became an official fellow in engineering science two years later.
“Brian co-founded the company PowderJect in 1993, which became one of the first companies to be spun-out successfully from the University of Oxford and was based at our Oxford Science Park,” the college spokesman said.
“Brian was a major donor to the College and endowed the Oxford-Bellhouse graduate scholarship at Magdalen in biomedical engineering.”
He became an emeritus fellow in 2004 after retiring from the university.
The academic devised a device that delivered needle-free injections. The company formed to commercialise the invention floated on the London stock exchange in 1997 and six years later was sold to US pharmaceuticals group Chiron for £542m.
The sale triggered a £100m windfall for Bellhouse, his son-in-law Paul Drayson – PowerJect’s chief executive – and their families.
Drayson, who put £250,000 into PowderJect when he joined the company in 1993, collected almost £43m from his 8% stake, while Bellhouse got £19.5m for his 3.6% stake. Their family trusts received a £41m payment.
Although PowerJect initially focused on the needle-free injection technology, it later concentrated on making influenza vaccines, which attracted the takeover interest.
A year after the sale PowderJect’s former research chief, Clive Dix, raised £20m in venture capital to buy back the injection technology from Chiron.
There have been at least 74 deaths involving cattle in the UK since 2000.
In April last year 61-year-old Marian Clode was killed while walking with her husband, daughter and son-in-law along a public bridlepath in Belford, Northumberland. The party was approached by a herd of cattle, which included several calves.
Her daughter Lucy Rowe told Sky News that one cow “flipped my mum like a rag doll over the fence into the next fence” after charging at her for the third time.
