A DRIVER involved in a horrific crash which killed three young people had been using his mobile phone seconds before impact, an inquest heard.

Lee Jones was travelling on the wrong side of the road, had been drinking and confessed he was speeding at the time of the accident, the coroner was told.

Jones, a Bournemouth ground worker, phoned a friend and sobbed: "I think I have killed someone," after his car crashed into another containing a group of five volleyball players.

National volleyball champion and former Poole High School pupil Mark Pitman, 18, of Gough Crescent, Poole, died of a ruptured aorta.

Suzanne Manning, a 23-year-old picture editor from London, died of similar injuries and driver James Phillips, 28, an insurance administrator from East London, died of multiple injuries due to blunt trauma.

District coroner Sheriff Payne heard they were travelling with two other women along Queen Anne Drive in Merley in a Renault 19 at about 9pm on Sunday, August 24, last year when it collided with a Rover 620i driven by Lee Jones.

The Bournemouth inquest was told that Mr Jones had been to a pub and a wine bar earlier in the evening and that his car was more than one metre into the wrong side of the road when the crash took place.

Mr Jones' friend and boss Robert Terry, who had been with him earlier, told the coroner he believed Mr Jones had consumed between two and four bottles of Budweiser. A breath test after the accident proved negative.

In an interview with police the following day Mr Jones said he believed he had consumed two bottles of beer and that he was travelling between 50 and 60 mph. Queen Anne Drive has a 40mph limit.

He said he did not remember using his mobile phone while driving but checks with mobile networks revealed he called his boss just 36 seconds before the first 999 call to report the accident.

The occupants of the Renault, who had been taking part in the Poole Festival of Volleyball over the Bank Holiday weekend, were on their way back to their camp site at Canford Magna when tragedy struck.

Survivor Sorrel Davies tearfully told the packed inquest that James Phillips, her boyfriend, was driving "very steadily and carefully".

Andrew Beckett, a Bournemouth software engineer who was travelling in front of the Renault told the inquest the Rover "did not seem to be in control" as it travelled towards them.

"He was certainly going faster than the speed limit. I heard a crash behind me," he said.

The coroner was told that Mr Jones was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving but has since been charged with careless driving. The case has yet to come to court.

Recording a verdict that all three victims died as a result of a road traffic collison, Mr Payne said of the verdict: "It does not expose the full horror of what happened.

"It would appear that Mr Jones was virtually on the wrong side of the road.

"He does not really admit that he made the phone call at all but it is apparent that he must have done."