Quarry car deaths 'misadventure'

The car was found on its roof at the bottom of the quarry

The driver of a car, which plunged into a quarry killing the four occupants, had cannabis and opiates in his system, an inquest in south Wales has heard.

But the coroner said that he could not be certain that the drugs had impaired the driving of 47-year-old Jack Magee.

Mr Magee, of Aberbeeg, Blaenau Gwent, was driving a BMW with Alex Williams, Karl Devlin, and Shane Powell inside.

The four men died of head and upper body injuries and the coroner recorded verdicts of misadventure.

The inquest heard how on 21 October 2004, Mr Magee was driving along the B4471 Swffryd Road between Llanhilleth and Hafrodrynys.

He lost control of the car, which smashed through a concrete barrier and down a near-vertical slope at the disused Monks quarry at Swffryd, near Crumlin.

Karl Devlin and Alex Williams were among the dead

Mr Magee, Mr Powell, 29, from Pontypool, Mr Williams, 21, from Newport, and Mr Devlin, 19, also from Newport, all died instantly.

Coroner David Bowen heard how Mr Magee had consumed opiates and cannabis prior to his death.

"Both are considered to be liable to impair an individual's ability to drive a vehicle," Mr Bowen told the hearing in Newport.

"Whether or not that was the case here only the occupants of the car can tell, and tragically they are all dead," he said.

However, the levels found in the body of Mr Magee were not conclusive of impairment, said Mr Bowen.

He said that if he had been sure that drugs had impaired his driving he would have returned a verdict of unlawful killing on the passengers.

The inquest heard how opiates were also found in the bodies of Mr Devlin, who was registered at Kaleidoscope, a Newport-based drugs project, and Mr Williams.

The car plunged 100ft into the quarry

Mr Powell, who was also enrolled on the Kaleidoscope project, had taken methadone and diazepam prior to his death, the hearing was told.

In a statement, witness Anthony Jones described seeing the BMW, shortly before the accident, accelerating to 85mph and overtaking four cars.

The single carriageway road had a 60mph limit.

Mr Bowen told the hearing that the "erratic" driving could have been evidence that Mr Magee had been affected by the drugs he had taken.

Equally, it could have been due to "showing off" the performance of his car, which he had recently bought with his brother.

Mr Magee had been left paraplegic after a road accident in 1981.

But examinations of the car - which had been specially modified for Mr Magee - showed there were no faults which could have contributed to the accident.

Pc Wayne Poulton of Gwent Police said it was "a classic case of a driver who loses control, over corrects and enters a spin".

Mr Bowen recorded verdicts of misadventure, saying that the loss of control of the car was a result of a deliberate act by Mr Magee, although the consequences were not intended.