A teenage driver who crashed killing one of his passengers had driven on the road hundreds of times before, a court heard.

Edward James, 19, was taking a group of Hadlow College students home from a Maidstone nightclub when he rolled his car on South Lodge Bend on the A26 in Teston.

Backseat passenger Perri McIlwraith, 17, of Mackintosh Close, High Halstow, lost her life in the crash.

James denies driving without due care and attention. He is due to give evidence today at his trial.

This morning magistrates heard from serious crash investigators who said there were no defects to his Ford Fiesta or the road which could have contributed to the crash.

James, of Plantation Drive, Orpington, was the designated driver on the night in question and had driven two groups of students to ikon in Maidstone.

He returned to college shortly after 1am with the first group, Julie Mead, Ella Johnson, Pam Beardsall and Perri McIlwraith which is when the accident happened.

In a police interview he said he had drunk a Red Bull and may have had a Smirnoff Ice, or a sip of one, but couldn’t remember. A breath test came back negative.

The court was read a transcript of a police interview with James in which he described the corner where the accident happened.

James, who had been driving for eight months prior to the crash, and drove regularly to his parents' houses in Sittingbourne and Orpington, said: "I don’t know what happened to the car, it had never happened before on any other road.

"We started sliding towards the other side of the road but there was a fence or wall or something, and I thought I don’t want to hit that.

"So I steered to the left thinking I’d straighten up, that’s when I think I did it too sharply and the car rolled.

"I think I shouldn’t have turned to the left so sharply so I blame myself on that. "I think it might not have been so bad if I had just let it go into the wall.

"It was only me trying to do what I thought was right at the time."

He said he was taken to hospital after the crash and was only told that Miss McIlwraith had died shortly before 6am in the morning.

He said: "I wanted to see her parents and try and say something but I wasn’t allowed.

"A few weeks later I met her father because I wanted to say sorry.

"I thought it was my duty to try and meet her parents and try and say something to them."

Defending Gayle Bisbey raised a report written after the accident which suggested there were some safety considerations on the road.

But the report’s author, a former senior investigator with the SCIU who has now retired, said they were simply suggestions, and they did not contribute to the accident.

The trial continues.