Segway tycoon dies after plunging off cliff in one of his own machines

THE millionaire owner of the Segway upright scooter company has died in a freak accident after riding one of the machines off a cliff into a river.

• Flowers are left next to the River Wharfe, Boston Spa, West Yorkshire where Segway company owner Jimi Heselden died yesterday. Pic:PA

Jimi Heselden, 62, lost control of an all-terrain version of the scooter as he travelled along a rutted bridleway close to his home.

After driving off the path, he is understood to have fallen 80ft over a cliff, and his body was found in a river after a passer-by called the emergency services.

Police believe his death was an accident and said they were not treating it as suspicious.

His wife, Julie, and other members of his family were too upset to talk about the tragedy, which happened on Sunday morning.

A member of staff at his home, known as Flint Mill, near Wetherby, West Yorkshire, said: "We are absolutely gutted. No-one wants to talk about it."

Mr Heselden, a former miner who made a fortune developing a blast wall to protect troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, bought the Segway company in December last year.

The firm was started by United States inventor Dean Kamen in 1999 and the upright machines, which the user powers by leaning forwards, became popular around the world.

Mr Heselden, who was worth an estimated 166 million, was well known for his philanthropy and just last week donated 10m to a charity foundation he launched in 2008.

The Leeds Community Foundation was set up to help disadvantaged youngsters and vulnerable elderly people in the city and has received more than 23m from Mr Heselden over the past two years.

Tributes came from friends and colleagues yesterday.

Bryn Parry, chief executive and co-founder of Help for Heroes, one of Mr Heselden's favourite charities, said: "Everyone at Help for Heroes is deeply saddened to hear of the tragic death of our greatest benefactor."

Tom Riordan, the chief executive of Leeds City Council, said: "Jimi was an amazing man who, apart from being a wonderful success story due to his business acumen, was also remarkably selfless and generous, giving millions to local charities to help people in his home city."

Mr Heselden began his working life as a miner in the Yorkshire coalfields, but lost his job in the wave of redundancies that followed the miner's strike of 1984.

Using his redundancy money, he set up his own business, HESCO Bastion, manufacturing portable wire cages that can be filled with earth and sand.

They were initially used to shore up canal banks, but the business really took off when it received orders from the military which used the cages as replacement sandbags to stop bullets, missiles and suicide bombers in combat zones.

The Pentagon alone bought more than 53m worth of the flat pack walls for use in Iraq and later in Afghanistan.Twice married Mr Heselden, who had four grown-up children, recently said he was very proud to give something back to his own community.