A tragic misjudgement cost the lives of a devoted York couple at an A64 accident blackspot, a coroner has ruled.

Andrew and Emma Leedham: died together after A64 road crash

John Broadbridge, deputy coroner for North Yorkshire East, recorded accidental death verdicts on retired storeman Andrew Leedham, 76, and his wife, Emma, 74, a retired nurse, of Murrough Wilson Place, off Wigginton Road.

Witnesses told a Pickering inquest that Mr Leedham's P-registered Nissan Micra apparently pulled out to overtake a yellow flat-bed Ford Cargo lorry, colliding with a Volvo articulated lorry which was already in the outside lane.

It then spun out of control as it headed up Golden Hill towards York, colliding with a Leyland Daf articulated lorry travelling towards Malton.

Mr Broadbridge told members of the dead couple's family: "I'm sorry that it would, therefore, appear that Mr Leedham made a serious misjudgement in seeking to overtake or move out of the nearside lane."

Mr and Mrs Leedham died of multiple injuries in the crash on November 9 last year. He suffered massive head injuries, and her neck was broken.

They were on their way home to York from Scarborough when the accident happened at about 2.10pm that day.

After the tragedy, Mr and Mrs Leedham's daughter, Jennifer, told the Evening Press it was a blessing they had died together as neither would have been able to cope with the loss of the other.

The couple, long-standing members of York Post Office Club, celebrated their golden wedding five years before their death.

They died three years to the day after another accident at the same spot in which Julian Littler and Nicholas Mitchell, both 27 and from the York area, died when their 1976 MG Midget spun out of control and hit a Peugeot.

The inquest into the Leedhams' deaths heard Volvo lorry driver John Squires, of Meriden, near Coventry, had just collected a load from Malton Bacon Factory when the Micra collided with his truck.

He had moved out to overtake vehicles which were in the crawler lane on Golden Hill.

Leyland Daf driver John Hall, of East Road, Norton, working for S W Cockerill of Malton, was returning from the British Sugar factory in York when the Micra slewed into his path.

Mr Hall said he braked heavily, but his lorry's wheels locked and it collided with the driver's door of the Micra, the front of which was "looking back into its own carriageway".

Norman Lonsdale, of Pasture Lane, Sherburn-in-Elmet, was returning home from Whitby with his wife and child when he saw the tragedy.

He described seeing the Micra indicate to pull out and move as if to overtake before colliding with the Volvo lorry in what he described as a "little tap".

The Micra then appeared to go out of control and swing around in front of the lorry.

"I said to my wife 'He's never going to pull out when there's an artic alongside him'. I could see what was going to happen," Mr Lonsdale said.

Police accident investigator PC Michael Natt said the Micra had rotated around the front of the Volvo lorry. "It was out of control at this stage, it's path dictated more by physics than by driving."

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