THREE people died in a fireball because a learner driver was high on drink and drugs.

An inquest heard that after it had sped round a roundabout the wrong way, the car, carrying six friends home from a night out, clipped a kerb, careered into a tree and landed upside down in the garden of a house and burst into flames.

Provisional licence holder Darren Caswell, 20, died behind the wheel.

Passengers Lisa Burniston, a mother-of-six, died the following day from 70 per cent burns while Anthony Cameron died from brain and multiple injuries and burns several days later.

Lisa's husband, Wayne Burniston, was left crippled, while friend Graham Morris had the finger ends of one hand amputated and lost part of his right ear.

Forensic examination found that Caswell, of Sunnyside Avenue, Middlesbrough, had more than twice the legal amount of alcohol in his blood to be driving, while he had taken heroin, codeine and Ecstasy.

PC John Clarke said in a statement read to the inquest: "It appears the driver's impairment through alcohol and drugs was the only explanation for his manner of driving.''

The inquest heard that the six met up in a pub in central Middlesbrough before moving on to a nightclub on July 17, 2000.

Michael Mitchell, the sixth person in the car, told the assistant deputy coroner, Anthony Eastwood: "We were going to get a taxi but Lisa had a fit and the car was near, so we tried to go home in the car.''

Mr Burniston, the owner of the car, sat his wife on his lap while Mr Caswell took the wheel for the drive back to their home on Middlesbrough's Grove Hill estate.

From his wheelchair, Mr Burniston said all he could remember of the crash was "just a couple of seconds being upside down in the car".

He said he had also taken an Ecstasy tablet that evening.

A verdict of accidental death was recorded on the three deaths.