THE widow of a charity director who was killed in a car crash in Kenya yesterday said she may never know what happened, after an inquest into his death.

Dee Tyrer spoke after a coroner ruled the death of Peter Tyrer, 64, was an accident.

Mr Tyrer, from Longworth, in the Vale of White Horse, was a passenger in a car which collided head-on with another car near Nairobi, the African country’s capital city, on November 18, 2011.

Assistant coroner Nicholas Graham said at the hearing in Oxford that the Kenyan authorities had provided “unsatisfactory” information about the crash.

He said: “Seeing the attempts we have made to contact the authorities, I think we’re probably as far as we can go.

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“It’s not entirely satisfactory, because of limited evidence, but we could wait for years.”

Mr Tyrer, a father of two, was on a three-week mission feeding and clothing children as part of his work running the African Children’s Fund, which he and his wife founded in 2006.

His widow said she had spent the past three years pressing Kenyan police for an official report.

Mrs Tyrer, 57, who still runs the charity with six employees, said: “We have been pressing for police reports.

“At one point we were told they were almost finished and ready to be given. We were hoping for something official to say what happened, but it’s not going to happen.”

She said: “Maybe it’s just the way they do things.

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Peter Tyrer

“I am sure it was a complete accident. I know Peter wouldn’t be pushing for any kind of retribution, accidents are accidents.”

She said her husband would want the charity to continue, adding: “When you get involved in this kind of work, you can’t just stop.”

Mr Graham said Mr Tyrer’s car crashed into a car trying to overtake a lorry coming the opposite direction on his way to a meeting.

He was due to return to the UK the next day.

Mrs Tyrer told the coroner she was told by witnesses that after the crash her husband walked around and said he did not want to go to hospital. But he was persuaded to take a taxi to a Nairobi hospital and was later pronounced dead there, she said.

A Kenyan pathologist found that he died from chest and abdominal injuries, Mr Graham said.

Born in Clevedon, Somerset, Mr Tyrer met his wife while working for Oxfam in Bristol in 1979, where they married in 1987.

They moved to Oxfordshire when Mr Tyrer was appointed as Oxfam’s fundraising director.

He was treasurer of Abingdon Chamber of Commerce, vice-chairman of Wantage Liberal Democrats and chairman of governors at Longworth Primary School.

After leaving Oxfam, the couple set up a development charity consultancy firm and founded the African Children’s Fund.

It raises about £200,000 a year with charity shops in Witney, Faringdon, Grove and Lechlade. Mr Graham called it a “tremendous force for good”.

The Tyrers’ daughter Becky, 25, is studying for a PhD in clinical psychology in Leeds and son Adam, 23, is an apprentice carpenter.

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