Three young friends were killed travelling home from a funeral when their car ‘split in half’ after hitting a bus, an inquest heard on Friday.
Driver Jesse Owen, 18, was over the legal drink-drive limit when he got behind the wheel of an Audi A1 carrying six people in total – even though the vehicle was designed to take a maximum of five.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Jesse was killed in the collision alongside champion kickboxer Callum Griffiths, 19, and Morgan Smith 18, who all died from blunt force injuries after he was seen driving at ‘very high speed’ in the car with personalised number plates and blacked out windows.
The collision happened in Coedely, near Tonyrefail, on December 11 last year.
The inquest heard the six had been to a funeral for the father of front seat passenger Ellis Williams before going on to a pub and a working man’s club where they drank three pints each.
Survivor Ellis said in a statement that he remembered Jesse driving ‘fast’ before coming to a bend where they saw the bus coming straight towards them.
Ellis said: ‘I didn’t take much notice of what the boys were drinking, because it was my father’s funeral.
‘Jesse was going to drive us. He wasn’t going to come out with us as he had work in the morning.
‘They were big lads so they would have been sat on top of each other in the back.’
