A TEENAGER was killed in a freak accident after the car she was travelling 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.

Prosecutor Peter Arnold told Hereford Crown Court: "The mast swung out like a lance in a medieval joust when two horsemen approach each other.

"By an unhappy quirk of fate, it pierced the windscreen, missed the driver by a whisker but struck the unfortunate young lady a fatal blow. She didn't stand a chance."

He 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 at 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.

He went on: "My mouth filled with glass. 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 Sarash was completely still. She was still holding her phone with her head down. The pole was in the car between us."

Mr Smith was unable to get out of the car because the mast was blocking the door.

Two men from another car removed the mast and helped him escape.

He could see that Miss James had serious injuries and held a jumper against her face to staunch the blood.

Tissiman turned his car round and returned to the scene. He and his wife were both shocked by what they found.

The jury heard that the new GP14 boat had been delivered from the Birmingham area to the defendant's home a fortnight before the incident.

He was an experienced sailor and had towed the boat to the reservoir a week later, ready for it to be raced.

But Mr Arnold alleged that there were a number of "deficiencies" in the way the boat had been prepared for its road journey to Tissiman's home on the tragic night.

He said investigators found that a rachet mechanism used to keep the boat firm on its trolley was slack.

He also claimed the boat was not securely tied to the trolley and the trolley was not attached to its road base by a retaining pin.

Mr Arnold said: "The culmination of these deficiencies may have led to more movement of the boat. It was not as secure as it should have been."

He said a competant driver would have made sure that the mast did not come out of its boat mounting.

The trial continues.