Around 13:30 BST on Saturday 10 October 2026 William Chapman, then 24, was inside the Land of the Tigers enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park near Doncaster after climbing two fences from the raised wooden walkway that runs for roughly 300 metres above the two neighbouring paddocks. Coroner’s officer Caitlin Brookes told Doncaster Coroner’s Court that he was approached by Altai, the Amur tiger housed there, that physical contact occurred, and that the multiple traumatic injuries he sustained rapidly led to his death. Park staff secured the tiger; paramedics who attended confirmed death at the scene. An initial post-mortem examination conducted by Dr Laszlo Karsai gave the provisional cause as 1A multiple traumatic injuries and 1B animal interaction; samples were taken for toxicology and a more substantial report on the precise extent of the injuries is still awaited. Senior coroner Nicola Mundy opened the inquest on 15 October, noted that the family had not attended because they were finding matters extremely difficult, and adjourned the full hearing until 18 March 2027.

Eyewitness accounts and limited mobile-phone material have begun to fill in the moments immediately before and after the climb. One visitor described Chapman pacing near the barriers while wearing headphones; another filmed the tiger only minutes earlier. Footage believed to have been recorded by Chapman himself shows him moving across grᴀss inside the enclosure toward the animal. Visitors later reported hearing shouts and seeing the tiger make contact; park staff fired sH๏τs into the air to move the tiger away before securing it. The enclosure itself is part of a two-acre Land of the Tigers area that includes woodland and a waterfall pool; the two Amur tigers, Altai and Tschuna, are normally kept in separate paddocks. Altai, approximately five years old and weighing around 200 kilograms, is an endangered Amur tiger, the world’s largest cat. The park has confirmed that the animal remains safe and well, will not be euthanised, and that its ongoing welfare is a priority for the animal-care team.

South Yorkshire Police collected statements from members of the public and from staff who were present. The coroner has directed the park to preserve any relevant CCTV and to report whether Chapman had visited on previous occasions. City of Doncaster Council, as licensing authority, is conducting a separate health-and-safety investigation and will share its findings with the coroner. The Rotherham, Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust has launched its own independent patient-safety review because Chapman, who had a long-standing diagnosis of schizophrenia and previous psycH๏τic episodes, was under its adult mental-health services yet was recorded as highly functioning and independent with no care requirements. Family members had already voiced concerns about the level of contact he received in the weeks before 10 October.

When the park reopened on 16 October the Land of the Tigers area was included. Early visitors found Altai in an adjacent paddock eating, while Tschuna occupied the larger enclosure that Chapman had entered. Staff were described as more proactive; the park emphasised that it had engaged with the relevant authorities before reopening and that specialist trauma support remained available for its own employees. It continues to ᴀssist all ongoing inquiries but has declined further public comment while those investigations proceed. The narrow factual record that exists so far is therefore composed of the timed climb of two fences, the approach to the tiger, the physical contact that produced fatal injuries, the securing of the animal, and the provisional medical findings. Everything else—the precise sequence of movements inside the enclosure, any words spoken, the role of mental-health history, and the adequacy of physical barriers—remains subject to the fuller evidence that will be examined in March 2027.