VISCOUNT Mountgarret, the former Yorkshire Cricket Club president who once hit the headlines for shooting at a hot air balloon, has collapsed and died at the wheel of his car.

Lord Richard Mountgarret, 67, from South Stainley, near Harrogate, collapsed on Saturday evening while driving on the A61 between Harrogate and Ripon near Ripley roundabout. He was taken to Harrogate Hospital but was certified dead.

Lord Mountgarret was president of the county cricket club in the 1980s, bringing comparative calm and stability after the club had been going through some turmoil.

But it was for his actions against a hot air balloon in 1983 that he became nationally famous. He peppered the balloon with shotgun pellets as it passed over his shooting party on Hardcastle Moor in the Yorkshire Dales. He said he had fired warning shots because he thought the balloon was in danger from grouse shots but magistrates ordered him to pay a total of £1,800.

He again hit the headlines in 1999 when an industrial tribunal ordered him to pay almost £20,000 to a gamekeeper who had claimed unfair dismissal, saying that his life had become intolerable because of his lordship's "intolerable rages and behaviour."

Updated: 11:10 Monday, February 09, 2004