A DRIVER was more than twice the alcohol limit when he crashed into a building “at grossly excessive speed”, killing himself and three university friends.
Makyle Bayley, 22, was driving a Ford Focus ST at about 94mph in Magdalen Street in the early hours of Saturday, February 1, when he lost control of the car, a series of inquests heard.
His friends – fellow Essex University students Eva Darold-Tchikaya, 21, Daljang Wol, 22, and TJ Hibbert, 24 – were passengers after being picked up in Colchester city centre in the early hours of the morning.
Lincoln Brookes, Essex’s area coroner, said they all had “a lot of potential and dreams for the future” before concluding the four students died as a result of a road traffic collision.
Along with Miss Darold-Tchikaya, all four got into a car in West Stockwell Street which then travelled up Balkerne Hill and along Southway towards St Botolph’s roundabout.
Essex Police’s forensic collision expert, Sergeant James Lee, said cameras in Magdalen Street showed the car driving at an approximate speed of 94mph along the road – though it could have been going 6.3mph faster or slower.
Reading from a report prepared in the weeks after the crash, Mr Lee said the car hit a traffic island opposite which caused severe damage to the driver’s side tyre.
He said the momentum caused the car to turn onto its side before it collided roof first into Dusty’s a second-hand shop.
The coroner said: “Death was almost instantaneous and in any event all of them would have been unconscious if there was any brief interval before death.
“There was no possibility of them being saved, as it were.
He added the level of alcohol in Mr Bayley’s system “may have played a role” in him driving at such speed.
Mr Brooks said: "One can only describe this as a tragic loss of four young lively ambitious people, full of energy, full of potential, and their sudden unexpected passing is truly tragic."
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