Deadly Italian ski prank devastates family

The widow of a businessman killed when a tobogganing prank in an Italian ski resort went wrong has spoken of her devastation.

Anne Monk, 43, said her husband, David, was "the best dad in the world" to their sons, Connor and Barney, adding that he would never knowingly have put himself at risk.

Mr Monk, 46, died from severe head and chest injuries at the resort of Sauze d'Oulx, west of Turin, after he and two friends used rubber matting they had taken from a safety barrier to slide down a slope.

They careered straight into barriers at the bottom of the piste and Mr Monk suffered fatal injuries while Richard Watkins, 41, of Hatfield, Herts, was hospitalised. Alan McGregor, 46, of Ware, needed medical attention.

Speaking at the family home in Ware, Herts, Mrs Monk said: "They were just having fun. He wouldn't have thought he was taking any risks.

"From what I have been told it was a beginner slope. He wouldn't have done anything that he thought was dangerous."

Speaking from Sauze d'Oulx, Mr McGregor, said: "There was nothing anyone could do. David hit his head on a corner post and he was gone virtually instantly. We and the police tried to do what we could but he died there.

"We saw this group of lads playing with a mat that had been taken off from the fence and we just joined in with them.

"David got on the mat as well and it picked up speed very quickly. Ten seconds later he hit his head and he was gone. I can't believe it - there are kids sledging there today where it happened. It's just a freak accident."

Mr Monk and his wife were unable to go on holidays together because they owned a clothing shop in Harlow and one of them had to stay behind to run it. He and his friends had gone on a long weekend, and were due home today.

Mrs Monk last spoke to her husband at about 8pm on Saturday, when he phoned and told her how much he was enjoying himself.

She said: "He phoned to say he had had a really good day snowboarding. He was really happy. He said all the rest were skiing and it had been hard for him to keep up, but he had really enjoyed it."

Shortly afterwards Mrs Monk went to bed, but was woken at about three o'clock on Sunday morning by a knock on the door.

The wives of her husband's friends had been contacted by the Italian authorities and made the journey in person to tell Mrs Monk that her husband was dead.

Having spent Sunday "distraught", she said: "I'm so shocked. Our whole lives were together. I just want everyone to know how lovely he was. He wouldn't have wanted to leave us."

A keen sportsman, Mr Monk used to run his son's football team and play golf as well as snowboard.

A spokesman for the Alpine rescue service said: "It was an act of suicide. These mats are made of plastic and gather speed frighteningly quickly, without any way of being stopped.

"He hit the post at exactly the spot where the crash mat had been stripped from."

Roberto Faure, the mayor of Sauze d'Oulx, promised to crack down on the practice, which has become common, especially among British tourists.

"The English tourists in particular like to throw themselves down the piste at night, without thinking about the dangers they face," he said. "It's urgent that we intervene now to stop this absurd phenomenon before it claims other victims."