A CAR crash victim told his mother he wanted to kill himself just days before his speeding vehicle smashed into a school wall.

At an inquest in Bolton, Steven Smith’s mother Jennifer Smith said he had been upset over the breakdown of his relationship and wanted to drive through a brick wall.

“He said he had had enough. He was going to take the children to social services and he was going to go through a brick wall,” said Ms Smith. However, she added that she likes to think he did not mean to go through with taking his own life.

Police collision investigation experts concluded that a mixture of drink-driving and speeding caused him to lose control of his Peugeot 206 and that he would have not been able to deliberately aim at the wall of Highfield Primary School on Marsh Lane, Farnworth.

Assistant coroner Rachel Griffin was told how, on the night of September 3 last year 36-year-old Mr Smith had been drinking in Bolton town centre where he met Emma Shipperbottom and offered her a lift home.

Ms Shipperbottom declined and took a taxi instead, but said Mr Smith appeared all right when they parted in the early hours of the morning.

PC William Coleman told the court that between 2.30am and 2.45am he had stopped a Peugeot 206 on Bradford Road after spotting it almost colliding with parked cars.

But after just five seconds, before he and a colleague had time to speak to the driver, the vehicle sped off.

The officers did not pursue the driver as they were in a police van, but learnt later that the Peugeot had crashed on Marsh Lane.

CCTV cameras at the junction of Bradford Road and Plodder Lane showed the car speeding through a red light on to Marsh Lane at over 65mph.

There were no witnesses to the crash a short distance further on, which left the vehicle severely damaged and on its roof.

But collision investigator PC Janine Kerr concluded that Mr Smith lost control of the speeding car on a slight left hand bend, crossing on to the opposite carriageway and hitting railings and then the school wall so hard that it became airborne and landed on its roof.

“Everything would have happened so quickly he (Mr Smith) wouldn’t have had time to react,” said PC Kerr.

Mr Smith, who had no driving licence, was not wearing a seat belt and the inquest heard he suffered massive chest injuries, including a ruptured aorta, and died quickly at the scene.

Tests revealed that Mr Smith, who was described as an alcoholic, had drunk more than three times the legal limit before the crash, which would have affected his driving ability and judgement.

Recording a conclusion that Mr Smith, of St Gregory’s Close, Farnworth, died as a result of a road traffic collision, Mrs Griffin said: “I am satisfied that Steven was probably not aware of what was happening at the time of the collision.”

She added that Mr Smith was much loved by his family and that his tragic death serves as a warning for others to obey the law.