A 53-year-old man died instantly when his car was involved in a multi-vehicle daytime pile-up in dense fog on the A20 at Capel-le-Ferne last summer, an inquest heard.

Speaking at the inquest into the death of Derek Bostock, a hod-carrier of Park Road, Cheriton, Coroner Rachel Redman described what happened as a tragic accident.

Mr Bostock, who was driving a VW Bora saloon towards Dover, was involved in a crash with two loaded articulated lorries heading for the docks.

His car was crushed but forensic investigator PC Adam Maxted said that with visibility down to 20 metres there was no evidence their either his head or fog lights were on.

The front of his car had struck one lorry and a second truck driven by a Polish driver had hit the rear. The foreign driver was detained by police after the accident but has since been cleared of causing the death.

A post mortem revealed that Mr Bostock died of multiple crushing injuries that fractured all but one of his ribs and his pelvis, and a lower neck injury that had damaged his spinal cord.

He had died instantly in the first collision before the second impact from behind.

The inquest at Ashford today (Thursday) heard that at around 4pm on June 30 traffic police attending an accident on the Court Wood slip road between an articulated lorry and a car heard a series of crashes on the A20.

Attempts were made by officers on the main road to slow traffic in heavy rain and alert drivers to accidents in a fog pocket ahead to prevent them ploughing into the crashed vehicles.

Police Sgt Martin Walker said fog warning systems were on but up to 170 vehicles became involved in the hold-up at the scene on a short stretch of the dual carriageway, although not all had been involved in collisions.

The road had to be closed for 12 hours for investigations and to clear the wreckage.

He said: “The vast majority of drivers had adjusted to the conditions but 13 people have since been prosecuted for careless driving.”