Coach crash deaths ruling
A coroner has recorded verdicts of accidental death on 11 people, including six from Shropshire, who were killed when their holiday coach careered off a French motorway in 1990. Mr Michael Gwynne, Coroner for Telford & Wrekin, said the driver had been flouting the speed limit, despite complaints from frightened passengers, and the coach tyres had all been under-inflated. A coroner has recorded verdicts of accidental death on 11 people, including six from Shropshire, who were killed when their holiday coach careered off a French motorway in 1990. Mr Michael Gwynne, Coroner for Telford & Wrekin, said the driver had been flouting the speed limit, despite complaints from frightened passengers, and the coach tyres had all been under-inflated. And he apologised to bereaved relatives that it had taken 16 years for them to finally hear the details of what happened. He made his comments at the end of an inquest yesterday at the Park Inn, Telford, on six Telford people, three from Wolverhampton and one from Oldbury. Read the full story in the Shropshire Star
Mr Michael Gwynne, Coroner for Telford & Wrekin, said the driver had been flouting the speed limit, despite complaints from frightened passengers, and the coach tyres had all been under-inflated.
And he apologised to bereaved relatives that it had taken 16 years for them to finally hear the details of what happened.
He made his comments at the end of an inquest yesterday at the Park Inn, Telford, on six Telford people, three from Wolverhampton and one from Oldbury.
They had been among 75 people on board a double-decker coach operated by Montego European Travel, of Leek, and hired by Dawley-based Pineda Holidays, which had been on its way back from the Costa Brava on June 3, when the accident happened at 8am near Cudot on the A6 motorway 80 miles south east of Paris.
A front tyre burst and the coach flipped over, smashed into concrete posts and skidded 50 metres on its side.
The coroner heard driver John Johnston had been rushing to catch a ferry and failed to slow down, despite passengers complaining.
Survivor Michael Coats, 45, of Whitchurch, who lost an arm in the crash, said a courier had been urging Johnston to go faster.
Mr Coats, now an IT lecturer at Ellesmere College, said he woke to what looked like a "war scene" after the crash, with the coach on its side and seats, glass and people scattered everywhere.
Constable Steven Parker said the tachograph showed Johnston had been consistently breaking the 56mph speed limit, hitting 78mph when the tyre burst.
The coroner said the trauma suffered by bereaved families had been made much worse by the 16-year delay on the part of the French authorities.
David Sanders, whose daughter Teresa Sanders died in the crash, said there was no excuse for such a long wait.
The inquest heard Johnston, of Stoke-on-Trent, was given a 30-month suspended jail sentence for involuntary manslaughter in 2003. He died this summer, aged 68.
By Peter Johnson