A TEENAGE girl died following a car crash after she and a friend accepted a lift during a night out, an inquest was told.

Lynsey Richards was cut free from a rear seat of a Vauxhall Nova which ended up on an embankment on New Road, Crook, County Durham, late on March 14, after colliding with a taxi being driven in the opposite direction.

Seventeen-year-old Lynsey, of Snowdrop Way, Etherley Dene, Bishop Auckland, was confirmed dead on arrival at hospital.

She died from severe head injuries, pathologist Dr Paul Barrett told the inquest, in Durham.

The hearing was told that as the car left Crook, heading for Bishop Auckland, it lost control on a bend, clipped a kerb with a rear wheel, before veering sideways into the path of the taxi.

North Durham coroner Andrew Tweddle recorded a verdict of accidental death