A MOTHER, whose son died in a crash, is demanding to know why police did not stop him from driving.

At an inquest into the death of Darren McGee, 33, his mother, Margaret, was told how the police were called to a domestic incident at his house.

PCs Darren Breslin and Simon Moore went to the house in Rochester Court, Ingleby Barwick, near Middlesbrough,where Mr McGee lived with his girlfriend, Michelle Phoenix.

Mr McGee was bundling clothes into the boot of a Ford Escort parked on the driveway.

The inquest heard that PC Breslin handed Mr McGee two cans of lager he found in the kitchen.

Solicitor Gerald Tomlinson, representing the two police constables, said Mr McGee was given the lager to stop him returning to the house, once he had left.

But investigating police officer Inspector Ian Kelly said: "I would not give a person alcohol who was already intoxicated, at the scene of a domestic incident.''

An hour later, the same two officers saw Mr McGee's uninsured and untaxed car and followed it 150 metres behind. Mr McGee then crashed on a roundabout at Ingleby Barwick and was killed.

At the inquest, Mrs McGee said: "They knew he was over the limit. They knew he was in an agitated state. Would it not have been safer for them to have backed off completely?''

The jury heard that Mr McGee had been driving at nearly three times the legal limit of alcohol in his blood.

Mr McGee who died on July 15, last year, had been due to appear in court on July 23 for driving while disqualified and driving with excess alcohol.

The inquest heard that the Crown Prosecution Service found the policemen were not criminally liable for what later happened.

Insp Kelly said: "Mr McGee was solely to blame for the tragic consequences.''