A TOP scientist who worked at Imperial College, London, has been killed in Australia only 20 minutes after he landed in the country.
Sean Barrett, 36, was in a taxi taking him from the airport in Perth to his hotel, when a stolen Toyota 4x4 ploughed into his cab.
Dr Barrett, a physicist, was originally from Salford but lived in London, had travelled to Australia to address a conference the following day.
His devastated mother, Jan Barrett, said: “Everyone absolutely loved him and had great respect for the work he was doing. He was renowned in his field even though he was only 36. He had an awful lot of papers published and he would’ve gone on to write a lot more. He would have gone on to do more great things.”
A spokeman for Imperial College London said: “It is with great sadness the we have learned of the death of Dr Sean Barrett. Sean was an outstanding physicist, whose research was furthering our understanding of quantum physics and quantum computing. His loss will be greatly felt by the scientific community."
Dr Barrett’s taxi driver also died in the accident as they were drove from the airport of the western Australian capital at about 2am on Friday, October 19.
A 23-year-old man, who was taken to hospital with broken legs, has been charged with two counts of manslaughter.
