15 Mar 2011

Film worker cleared of NZ-born cameraman's death

3:00 pm on 15 March 2011

A British court has cleared an Oscar-winning special effects expert over the death of a New Zealand-born cameraman during the making of the last Batman movie in 2007.

Conway Wickliffe, 41, was killed when the vehicle from which he was filming struck a tree during a test run for an action scene.

The father-of-two suffered severe head injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene at an industrial site in southern England.

Jurors at Guildford Crown Court took less than two hours to find special effects supervisor Christopher Corbould not guilty of the charge of failing to ensure his safety.

Mr Corbould, 53, won an Oscar last month for the special effects in the science fiction film Inception.

Batman : The Dark Knight was a global box office hit, generating just over $US1 billion in ticket sales and earning Heath Ledger, who played the Joker, a posthumous Oscar.