This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It will not be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/england/shropshire/6101348.stm

The article has changed 6 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Coach was 'speeding' inquest told Accident verdict over coach crash
(about 2 hours later)
An inquest into the deaths crash of 11 Midlands tourists in France in 1990 has heard their coach was speeding on the way to catching a ferry. Verdicts of accidental death have been recorded on 11 tourists who died after a speeding coach went off a motorway and crashed in France 16 years ago.
Six passengers from Shropshire and five from the West Midlands died in the accident 80 miles south of Paris. Six passengers from Shropshire and five from the West Midlands were killed in the accident 80 miles south of Paris.
The inquest in Telford has had to wait until the driver, John Johnston, had his appeals against his manslaughter conviction dismissed earlier this year. Coroner Michael Gwynne, said the deaths had been aggravated by the excessive speed of the vehicle and a failure to check tyre pressures.
Albert Jones, whose wife died, told the inquest the "damn fool" was speeding. The inquest was delayed by appeals over the driver's manslaughter conviction.
Sat among wreckage Courier 'laughed'
Johnston, from Stoke-on-Trent, who died in August, was found guilty in 2003 of manslaughter and was given a 30-month suspended prison sentence. The hearing was told the double-decker coach, run by a Shropshire-based firm, was going from Spain's Costa Brava to Calais in June 1990.
The Montego European Travel coach was heading back to the UK from Spain with 69 passengers on board when the accident happened. It ended up on its side and crashed through concrete fence posts into a field after its front offside tyre burst.
Mr Jones told the inquest at the Park Inn Hotel that he was so worried about how fast the coach was going that he spoke to the courier. Valerie Reynolds, whose husband Michael died in the crash, told the hearing the coach was being "pushed on" as it was running late.
He said she told him they were trying to catch the ferry so people could get to work the next morning. Mrs Reynolds said passengers had expressed concerns to a female courier about the coach swaying and going too fast, but she laughed.
Mr Jones added that as he sat among the wreckage, he spoke to the driver of another coach who had stopped. It should have been travelling at no more than 56mph (90km/h) but a tachograph showed it was doing 78mph (126km/h).
'Too late' 'Sad tale'
The crash survivor said the other driver told him he was overtaken at 80 to 85mph (129 to 137km/h). The driver, John Johnstone, from Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, was given a suspended prison term by a French court in 2003 after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
The driver's trial had heard how the coach was travelling over the speed limit when a tyre burst and the vehicle flipped. Appeals against it meant paperwork for the inquest was not sent to Britain until earlier this year. The driver died in August of natural causes, aged 68.
One relative, Henry Weir, said outside the inquest in Shropshire: "Sixteen years - it's too late now. It's just ridiculous. Mr Gwynne, the Telford and Wrekin Coroner, said: "You have heard the sad tale of how matters just went on.
"We needed this to be done in 1991/92 to find out what happened. "Never have I experienced the sort of lack of information which I was given every time I made a request over the 16 years this has gone on."
"We only know what we read in the papers really."