Death crash driver three times over limit, inquest told

A Hawke's Bay man was killed when his car crashed into school grounds while he was more than three times over the legal drink-drive limit.

A Napier inquest was told yesterday that Alfred Montgomery Gray, accepted a ride home in a courtesy van from the hotel in Eskdale, near Napier, at 2am on May 28.

But while the hotel manager went around the back to get the van he decided to drive and as the manager drove to the front of the hotel she saw him driving away.

As Mr Gray, 65, drove down Hill Road, Bay View, he missed a tight left-hand bend and crashed through a wooden barrier in the grounds of Eskdale School.

His car landed on its roof on the school's tennis court.

A blood specimen returned a reading of 262mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, more than three times over the limit of 80mg per 100ml of blood.

- HAWKE'S BAY TODAY