Inquest opens into man’s summer solstice death in Peak District

An inquest has opened into the death of a man who died during a summer solstice event.

The body of Isaac Clare-Watts, 26, of Sherbrook Road, Nottingham, was found in the area of the Nine Ladies Stone Circle in Stanton Lees at 13:38 BST on 22 June.

Szymon Babynko – a Polish national of Commonwealth Way, London – was charged with Clare-Watts’s murder last month and is due to stand trial in November.

Susan Evans, coroner for Derby and Derbyshire, opened the inquest at Chesterfield Coroner’s Court on Monday and said she had not yet received the findings of a post-mortem examination.

She told the hearing that Clare-Watts, who was a carpenter, died in a grassland area near the early Bronze Age stone circle.

He was identified by his mother at Leicester Royal Infirmary, the coroner said.

Suspending the inquest until the conclusion of criminal proceedings, Evans offered her condolences to Clare-Watts’s family.

Babynko has also been charged with attempted murder and possession of an offensive weapon in relation to an incident in Hady Lane, Chesterfield, on 25 June.