A MAN who died after crashing a car while driving at more than 100mph was nine times the drug-driving limit and one-and-a-half times the drink-driving limit, an inquest was told.

John Patrick Connors, 26, also known as Johnny, died after crashing into the barrier on the A64 at Whitwell-on-the-Hill on Sunday, December 7, last year.

An inquest in Scarborough on Monday heard that Mr Connors, of Tara Park, Malton, had cocaine in his system, did not have a licence and was not insured to drive the black Mercedes C220 he was behind the wheel of at the time of the crash.

Mr Connors had been out in Malton during the evening when he saw Dale Swift, the owner of the car. Mr Swift, who now lives in Rotherham, has worked for Brian Ellison Racing for the past eight years. He said he did not think Mr Connors had taken any drugs that evening.

The pair picked up Rebecca Shepherd and Connors’ fiancée, Abi, before driving to a garage near the Howsham turn-off on the A64 to buy cigarettes.

Driving back along the A64, Mr Swift said the car was possibly going faster than 100mph as they overtook an ambulance and Ms Shepherd said despite “driving safe” on the way to the garage, Mr Connors was driving too fast on the way back to Malton.

She said: “I think I remember shouting 'slow down' and we went past an ambulance and it felt like we were going flat out.”

Steven Anderson, from the Yorkshire Ambulance Service, was in the ambulance which the car overtook.

He recalled that his colleague, who was driving the ambulance, said it was “an accident waiting to happen”.

Taxi driver Matthew Kemp said in a statement read out at the inquest that the car overtook him at speed as he made his way back to Pickering from York. The car drove up Whitwell-on-the-Hill before going out of sight.

Mr Kemp said: “I saw headlights up in the air in the trees and the lights were spinning round. I immediately said to my passenger ‘he’s lost it’.”

The car hit the barrier in the central reservation on the eastbound carriageway at about 1am before hitting the concrete round and overturning.

Mr Kemp said that the car and its occupants “stank strongly of alcohol and diesel”. He also noticed that there were unopened bottles of alcohol in the car.

TC Dave Foster, of North Yorkshire Police’s collision investigation team, said that Mr Connors had made a “serious error of judgement” and that the car had still been travelling at between 87 and 89mph as it span round on its roof after colliding with the barrier.

He added: “By the time any process to apply corrections would have occurred, Mr Connors was in the process of striking the barrier. There would have been no alternative but to continue. Mr Connors was not insured and he did not hold a licence to drive.

“The car was still travelling forward at a minimum of 80mph and anything between 87 and 99mph. The car was on its roof and rotating clockwise 180degrees.

“It travelled at least 225m after striking the barrier.”

Two off-duty firemen stopped their car and told the paramedics who were in a following ambulance that they could not find a pulse on Mr Connors.

Mr Swift was able to get out of the car and Steven Anderson said that the car was a “squashed wreckage”.

Paramedic Steven Anderson said: “There was a lot of screaming and shouting coming from the car and a lot of panic.”

The two girls were freed from the car and taken to hospital. A pathology report said that Connors died from multiple injuries, including injuries to his head, abdomen and pelvis, as well as multiple limb fractures. A toxicology report said that Mr Connors had 190mg of alcohol in his system — the legal limit is 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood. He also had 89ug of cocaine in his system — the legal cocaine limit is 10ug per litre.

Scarborough County Court coroner Michael Oakley reached a conclusion of accidental death.