A car driver had been going “like a bat out of hell” before causing a motorway accident that killed a 52-year-old Sheerness man, a court heard.

Stephen O’Reilly had driven for eight hours without a rest when the tragedy happened on the M2 near the Sittingbourne turn-off on June 27.

Maidstone Crown Court was told O’Reilly, 30, had also drunk alcohol during the trip with his girlfriend from Holyhead in Wales.

Anthony Prosser, prosecuting, said O’Reilly, from Dublin, Ireland, drove off a ferry in his Volkswagen Golf GTI at Holyhead and reached the M2 at about 3.30am.

“Some witnesses say as he approached junction five he was driving at excessive speed,” he said.

One later made the bat-out-of-hell comment and another, a railway engineer, said the car’s speed was “sheer lunacy”. They soon afterwards arrived at the scene of the accident.

Mr Prosser said O’Reilly’s driving caused a double crash.

He first hit the back of a Peugeot 405 car driven by victim Andrew Gregory, causing it to spin and overturn onto its roof across the inside lane.

A driver of a Volkeswagen Bora was presented with a dark solid mass in front of him and skidded and collided with the Peugeot.

Mr Gregory, of Harris Road, Sheerness, died from multiple injuries.

O’Reilly was arrested and a breath test proved positive.

Experts estimated his speed at the time of the accident was 69-75mph. “It must be taken as a minimum,” said Mr Prosser. “It could be significantly higher.”

When interviewed, O’Reilly, who was visiting cousins in the Sittingbourne area, said he believed his car had been struck to the rear by another vehicle and maintained the crash was not his fault.

But there was no damage to the back of his car.

He said he only made two stops on the journey to fill up with petrol.

The prosecutor said O’Reilly’s car scraped a barrier and drifted off the road because of fatigue or alcohol.

The force of the impact with the Peugeot caused his rear nearside wheel to sheer off, leaving gouge marks in the road. He swerved across two lanes and came to rest in some bushes.

Mr Prosser said O’Reilly tried to hide a mobile phone in his underpants. It was suggested the phone could have been a distraction before the crash.

O’Reilly, whose bail address is in Springhead Road, Faversham, denies causing death by dangerous driving.

The trial continues.