Terry Coles was approaching the ground when he was fatally injured

On Monday - the second week of the hearing into the death of the 42-year-old Terry Coles - South Yorkshire Police's mounted officer Sarah Woodwards described the moment she saw the incident involving her colleague David Lindsay.

Father-of-two Mr Coles was fatally injured after being in collision with a police horse after trouble broke out before the Division Three decider between Rotherham and Swansea City on 6 May 2000.

"I bent down to speak to a fan," Pc Woodward told the hearing at Doncaster Magistrates Court. "It wasn't until I was upright that I saw David Lindsay move away.

"I saw a man bending down as other people were around him doing something similar.

"I saw him bending down and going forward and the horse literally going over the top of him (Terry Coles)."

When asked by the coroner how the horse was being ridden, she replied: "He was ridden in a professional manner and the those did what the rider asked him to do.

"It was going at a slow canter, I would say it was steady."

The mounted officers tried to alleviate trouble outside the ground

She added that the horse in question was very experienced and had a calm temperament.

Pc Woodwards told the court how the mounted officers were working outside Rotherham United's Millmoor ground, when trouble broke out between rival supporters, with stones and other missiles being thrown.

She explained how the they tried to diffuse trouble by moving the visiting supporters towards the ground.

"Pc Lindsay suggested if we could move Swansea fans down to where the turnstiles were it could alleviate the problem."

It was, she added, common practice to manoeuvre a horse at a crowd in order to disperse them and that the crowd around Terry Coles - a drayman for Bass breweries - had moved away at the time he was struck.

Cans of beer

Early last week, the court heard a statements by another Swansea fan, Alan Roberts who told how he thought the horse was "spooked... and the rider was struggling to control it".

A few days before, evidence from other police officers said Mr Coles appeared to have "walked into the path of the police horse" and was seen on CCTV footage throwing objects into the stadium.

But a friend of Mr Coles said he would have "run the other way" to avoid any trouble.

Keith Hill - who had travelled to Rotherham in a minibus with Mr Coles and other fans - was unable to comment on the suggestion Mr Coles had drunk 12 cans of beer during the journey.

He said the group were drinking in Rotherham before the game over which time Mr Coles drunk no more than around seven pints.

Post mortem examination tests showed Mr Coles was four times over the drink-drive limit at the time of his death.

The inquest continues.