A TEENAGER was killed in a freak accident after the car she was in was hit by a boat, a jury was told.

Mark Tissiman was towing a trailer with a dinghy aboard behind his Range Rover Sport.

But the boat’s mast broke loose just as it passed an oncoming Rover saloon driven by Duncan Smith in Dowles Road, Bewdley.

The mast smashed through Mr Smith’s windscreen missing him but fatally injuring his front seat passenger, 19-year-old Sarah James.

She suffered massive head injuries and died in hospital two hours later.

At Hereford Crown Court prosecutor Peter Arnold claimed Tissiman had failed to secure the mast properly after leaving a sailing club at Chelmarsh reservoir 13 miles away with his wife.

Tissiman, a 48-year-old heating engineer of Kidderminster Road, Bewdley, denies causing the death of Miss James by dangerous driving.

Miss James, of Redstone Drive, Highley, had gone to the cinema in Kidderminster with her friend Mr Smith on the night of June 4 last year.

They were going home around 10.45pm along the B4194 out of Bewdley when the defendant’s car approached from the Button Oak direction.

In a statement read out in court, student Mr Smith said Miss James was sending a text on her phone when he heard a loud crack.

“My mouth filled with glass,” he said. “I said what the hell was that but Sarah didn’t respond. At first I thought we’d been hit by a brick or a bat.

“I pulled over but Sarah was completely still. She was still holding her phone with her head down. The pole was in the car between us.”

Mr Smith was rescued from the car by passing motorists and tried to staunch the blood from Miss James’s head injury.

The trial continues.