A MAN killed in an early morning crash on the M40 had turned down a friend’s offer of a bed for the night, a coroner heard yesterday.

Warren Stone made the fateful decision to drive back home to Oxford after being with friends at a promotional event in London in the early hours of May 5.

Yesterday his inquest heard he wanted to return to the city because he had things to do later that day with his fiancée Amy Bothwell.

Oxfordshire Assistant Coroner Peter Clark was also told Mr Stone was more than two times the drink drive level when he crashed his silver Vauxhall Astra on the M40 between junctions 6 and 7.

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On the previous night, a Sunday, Mr Stone, an Oxford-born accounts manager, attended a promotional event at the Kitsch nightclub in the West End.

Kingsley Ugwu, a football agent and friend of Mr Stone’s since he was six, said in a statement that he arrived at the event around midnight and saw Mr Stone already there with a drink in his hand, although Mr Ugwu did not know what it was.

Mr Ugwu said: “The day before the accident Warren seemed fine.”

Mr Stone, Mr Ugwu and a third person had recently set up a sports management company in London.

The three business partners left the event between 2.30am and 3am and Mr Stone drove them to a McDonald’s in Trafalgar Square. They ate in the car.

Mr Ugwu said he asked Mr Stone whether he wanted to stay in the hotel room he had booked for himself, but his friend replied he wanted to return to Oxford because he had things to do with his fiancée that morning.

Mr Stone was due to marry Miss Bothwell in September. Ms Bothwell had previously told the Oxford Mail that he was the love of her life and “enjoyed every moment to the maximum.”

Mr Stone, of Upway Road, Headington, left London between 4am and 4.30am, said Mr Ugwu.

A former student at Marston Middle School and Oxford and Cherwell Valley College, Mr Stone then began driving back to his Oxford home in the dark.

He had a blood alcohol level that was twice the legal driving limit, said Oxfordshire Assistant Coroner Peter Clark. A post-mortem examination found he had a blood alcohol level of 201 milligrammes per 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit of 80 milligrammes.

Pc Adrian White told the court that Mr Stone’s car drifted from the right lane of the M40, and brushed the barrier before Mr Stone tried to correct the vehicle.

However, he caused “a sudden and rapid rotation of the vehicle,” and it crashed off the motorway and into a fence.

The medical cause of death was severe head injuries, the court heard.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, Mr Clark said: “Warren was intoxicated and it is likely that it is the reason why the vehicle drifted.”

 

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