A man killed in a head-on crash had been drinking and taking drugs, an inquest heard.

Sean Flynn died when his Ford Fiesta ploughed into a Ford Focus travelling in the opposite direction outside Butterfly Cottage on the A28 Hastings Road in Rolvenden, near the World of Water Aquatics Centre.

Mr Flynn, 37, had 255mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood a post mortem revealed, more than three times the legal limit of 80mg.

A toxicology report also showed cocaine and cannabis in his blood, but not in his urine, from which doctors concluded the drugs had recently been ingested.

The accident happened at 5.20pm on Monday, September 4, and police investigating officer PC David Burley said it had been daylight, the road surface was good and there were no faults with either car that could have accounted for the crash.

From the position of the vehicles, the spread of debris and statements from the five people in the other vehicle, he was satisfied that Mr Flynn had been driving on the wrong side of the road after coming round a bend.

Mr Flynn had not been wearing a seatbelt and struck the windscreen. He died from loss of blood after a traumatic haemorrhage at the base of his heart.

The five in the other car, who had been on holiday, were wearing seatbelts and suffered only minor injuries.

"That road is very winding and twisty and although there are arrows on the bend there have been quite a few accidents there" - Cllr Harry Hickmott

The inquest heard that Mr Flynn had a history of alcohol and drug abuse dating from 2003.

He had also suffered at times from depression and had previously blacked out after excessive drink and drug bouts.

He had married in 2014, but had split from his wife and children in February, leaving the family home in Swanscombe, to live in a caravan.

However, Amy Flynn said they had recently been reconciled. He had spent the previous weekend with her.

As Mr Flynn had threatened suicide in the past, coroner Kate Thomas considered whether he may have deliberately taken his own life, but ruled that out after hearing of conversations with family while working as a machine driver in Tenterden.

Mrs Flynn told the court: “If he had intended to take his life, he would have driven into a tree.”

The coroner said she was confident that Mr Flynn’s alcohol and drug consumption would have adversely affected his driving but he may have had a medical episode.

She concluded that he died as a result of a road traffic collision.

A Tenterden councillor was one of the first on the scene.

Cllr Harry Hickmott, right, a volunteer at the Kent & East Sussex Railway (KESR), had been at Bodiam Station and was travelling home with colleagues.

Cllr Hickmott, a former policeman, discovered the victim dead at the scene and talked to the driver of the other car, who was standing by his vehicle clutching his sides with what he described as seatbelt injuries.

He said: “His passengers had been taken into a house near the roadside before the emergency services arrived.”

The driver told him the group were on holiday from Surrey, staying in Bodiam.

Cllr Hickmott was travelling with Lyn Brocklebank, KESR station manager at Bodiam, and Bradley Bottomley, Tenterden station manager.

He and Mr Bottomley directed the traffic until police arrived.

Cllr Hickmott said: “The air ambulance doctor was incredible and the response from the emergency services amazing.

"There were six police cars, two paramedic cars, two ambulances and two fire engines there. The police were appreciative we had controlled the traffic.”

He described the scene as “horrific” and “so sad to see”, adding: “That road is very winding and twisty and although there are arrows on the bend there have been quite a few accidents there.”