A MAN who died in a motorway crash on the M606 was more than double the drink drive limit, an inquest heard today. 

Yasib Ali Mahboob died on December 18, 2017, following a police pursuit in the early hours of the morning.

The 34-year-old, a single man who lived on Whitby Avenue, Girlington, collided with the motorway barrier close to junction 26 for the M62 and died at the scene at around 3.40am.

Prior to that, he had failed to stop for police in the Heaton area after he was seen reversing on to the main road of the Toller Lane roundabout in the early hours of the morning, before driving in the wrong direction.

The jury inquest into his death, expected to last for two weeks, began today at Bradford Coroners' Court, sitting at Bradford Crown Court.

The inquest heard of the events leading up to the fatal crash and evidence from the two police officers who initially saw Mr Mahboob's car.

They were working the night shift and were stationed at the top of Lilycroft Road in anticipation of another vehicle which had 'hit' an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) camera.

The inquest heard it was while waiting there they saw a silver Audi A4 reverse out and set off "at speed" in the wrong direction towards Toller Lane, being driven in an "erratic" way.

The court was shown CCTV footage of that point.

The officers, who were in a marked BMW X5, followed the Audi up Toller Lane for around a mile, but by that time it had gone out of sight, the inquest heard.

The officers turned back around to go back up Toller Lane, in the direction of where they had been waiting for the ANPR hit, and the Audi then came back out behind them and drove off in the opposite direction.

The inquest heard the vehicle's blue lights were illuminated and an initial phase pursuit began, where the role is to follow the vehicle and communicate information back before Tactical Pursuit And Containment (TPAC) officers take over to bring the car to a stop.

The Audi was said to be going at "high speed" and was in the distance and the inquest heard the officers never really caught it up.

They continued to follow it until totally losing the car at Heights Lane, but TPAC units then took over.

The inquest heard the officers had a piece of kit called a stop stick, which can be used to deflate tyres to bring them to a stop, but did not get the opportunity to deploy it.

They then heard how the pursuit had ended on the M606 and went to the scene, where Mr Mahboob was being given medical attention by other officers.

Forensic pathologist Matthew Lyall told the inquest that Mr Mahboob had 72 documented injuries and said the main injuries were to the head and neck.

A toxicology report found he was over twice the legal drink drive limit, with 193mg of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit is 80mg.

There was also evidence of cocaine and cannabis use.

He was formally identified by his fingerprints.

The inquest continues.