Crab,
One of these days you might just have to get out and work for a living flying helicopters and your cozy RAF World view will be completely shattered.
I can promise you that somewhere around this big ol' World we live in there is some helicopter pilot somewhere doing exactly what we are talking about. Out of the tens of thousands of occasions each year Pilots do this without harm or foul go completely unremarked upon.
One of the greatest hurtles Military Pilots encounter when they try to take up Civvie Flying is accepting the fact they are not still in the Military, are not Officers, and that there is a completely different way of doing things than the way they so used to doing.
In all the time pprune Rotorheads has been around, I would bet you this is the exact first time this kind of thing has happened.
Any of you old time, long time Utility Pilots know of any other similar event where a Pilot was killed by his helicopter taking off without him?
Now let's see......how many Pilots have been killed in the UK in the past couple of Years from the same old mistakes?