A 26-year-old man suffered fatal injuries when the Subaru Impreza he was travelling in was ripped apart by a speeding Audi S3 hatchback, a jury heard yesterday.

Elena Claughton was allegedly doing more than 50mph late at night along the A650 Bradford Road at Frizinghall when the Subaru driver tried to turn right across her path into Beamsley Road.

Prosecutor Andrew Dallas told Bradford Crown Court that the Audi struck the passenger side of the Subaru causing fatal injuries to rear seat passenger Khalid Zaheer, from Walsall.

The car's driver and his two other passengers were also injured and the force of the impact pushed the vehicle on to the pavement where two pedestrians were also hurt.

"The effects of the collision were dramatic and, as you've heard, tragic," Mr Dallas told the jury.

"The Subaru was effectively torn apart. It was thrown back in its tracks ending up virtually in two pieces.

"The defendant was lucky. Her airbag went off and she was able to get out of the vehicle relatively uninjured."

Although the Subaru driver is facing prosecution for careless driving Mr Dallas explained to the jury why 28-year-old Claughton, of Green Lane, Thornton, Bradford, was on trial on a charge of causing death by dangerous driving.

"We say this accident like so many others cannot be simply put down to a single cause," said Mr Dallas.

"We say that there was more than one cause of this accident... we say that both drivers were to blame for this collision although we say, for reasons which I'll expand on, that the greater blame lies on this defendant Elena Claughton."

Mr Dallas alleged that as Claughton travelled along the 30mph road towards Bradford city centre that night she was driving at "a grossly excessive speed" for the road conditions.

"Although she saw the Subaru in the road ahead as she later admitted and although she admitted that she understood its intention was to turn right she did not slow down but simply kept on going and was unable, she says, to do anything when it did in fact cross in front of her.

"We say she was driving so fast in those particular conditions that the driving amounts to dangerous driving.

"We will say the defendant was driving in the 50s somewhere. Not just slighlty over the limit. Well over the limit.

"If she had been doing no more than 30... the Subaru would have cleared the road in front of her."

After the collision Claughton was assisted by members of the public.

"She was understandably shocked and upset," said Mr Dallas. "She was saying repeatedly it was her fault and she said more than once in the hearing of bystanders that she had been speeding."

During the police investigation into the collision, it emerged that while Claughton had been driving back from Ilkley to Bradford that night she had been talking to her boyfriend for about 13 minutes.

Although the call ended a few minutes before the fatal crash in Frizinghall Claughton faces a further charge of dangerous driving in relation to her use of her mobile phone.

Mr Dallas pointed out that her route that night involved various A-roads, five roundabouts and five sets of traffic lights.

He alleged that driving one-handed while using a mobile phone in those circumstances amounted to dangerous driving.

Claughton has denied both allegations and her trial is expected to last the rest of the week.