A JURY saw video today of a police car travelling at 126mph in pursuit of a car which went on to drive the wrong way down the M4 and crash into an oncoming vehicle Five people were killed in the crash, including three young men in the Ford Mondeo which was being pursued and an elderly couple in the Volvo they collided with.

An officer in the police car, Pc Thomas Jones, told Newport Coroner's Court he did not consider the pursuit dangerous until the Mondeo drove up the exit slip-road of the M4.

The pursuit was then immediately stood down, he said.

The crash happened on the M4 near junction 24 at Newport on September 17 last year.

Christopher Beresford, 18, who was driving the Mondeo, and two of his passengers, Lee Maggs, 23, and Sam Case, 19, all from Newport, died in the crash.

The couple killed in the other car, James Stafford, 69, and his wife, Bridget, 70, had been travelling home to Surrey following a holiday in Ireland.

An in-car video of the pursuit, shown to the jury, showed the police travelling at speeds of up to 126mph.

But PC Jones, who was in the front passenger seat, was heard telling the Gwent Police control room they were travelling at 80mph to 90mph.

He told the inquest: "I was 20mph out, I accept that. You have to understand that when I'm giving that information I'm looking at other aspects, not just speed.

"I've looked across (at the speedometer) and interpreted 80mph as 100mph, the vehicle would be constantly accelerating.

"I've been in pursuits doing 150mph and it's perfectly safe to continue. It was perfectly safe, it was not an issue.’’ Barrister Shaheen Rhaman, representing the Stafford family, said to PC Jones he must have been aware of the high speed they were travelling at.

Pc Jones said: "It took two minutes to get to the Coldra, a distance of three miles. That's an average speed of 90mph.’’ He told the inquest there were six other safe routes on the Coldra roundabout where the Mondeo drove up the exit slip-road.

Until then, he said, the pursuit was "perfectly safe given the conditions and circumstances’’.

Referring to force guidelines on pursuits, Ms Rahman asked Pc Jones why they had not asked permission from the control room to conduct a chase.

Pc Jones said: "We were in a pursuit situation. We weren't going to pull over, call up and say 'by the way we are in a pursuit situation'. It would have been a mile up the road by then.’’ He said he had requested a stinger be deployed to the Coldra to try to stop the Mondeo, but that did not happen.

PC Jones described the driver of the police car, PC Richard Wyatt, as "the top of his tree, the consummate professional’’.

He said: "I can assure the court if I had been uncomfortable in any way, shape or form I would have stood down that pursuit.’’ Control room operator Catherine Fitchie, who dealt with the pursuit, said she did not consider giving instructions to abandon the pursuit "at any time’’.

She said that when the Mondeo took the exit slip-road the traffic officers and the control room inspector "simultaneously’’ took the decision to stand down.