THE mother of a teenager who died when his car pulled into the path of a police car last night criticised official guidelines allowing patrol cars to break the speed limit.

Karl Sutcliffe was thrown through the windscreen in the smash, which happened as the police car was travelling at 80mph.

Three passengers in the Peugeot 309 ran off, leaving the 19-year-old dead in the the road near Bishop Auckland, County Durham.

The victim was giving the trio a lift to buy drugs after a Golden Jubilee Party on the town's Woodhouse Close Estate last June, an inquest was told.

The marked BMW police car, driven by PC Gary Emerson, spun out of control and hit a lamppost, trapping PC Neil Fuller in the passenger seat.

South Durham coroner Colin Penna - who recorded a verdict of accidental death - heard how the officers were following two cars seen racing each other on the A689 by-pass, at Coundon, in June last year.

PC Emerson accelerated to almost 80 mph when Mr Sutcliffe pulled out of the Gurney Valley junction without looking.

He said that police guidelines allowed him a top speed of 120mph but he had exercised caution because of the side roads. He did not activate the siren or blue lights because he did not want the two drivers he was following to panic.

PC Fuller, who had to be cut from the wreckage, said: "The driver of the Peugeot did not look right towards us at all. I was fixated on him, willing him to look towards us but he pulled out in front of us."

David Spence and John Fazakerley, who were both passengers in the car, said they could not remember whether Mr Sutcliffe had stopped at the junction before pulling out.

Mr Fazakerley told the inquest he had been drinking all day and had taken Ecstasy. Mr Sutcliffe was driving them to Coundon to buy drugs.

Both teenagers said that Mr Sutcliffe had arrived at the party late. Tests showed he had traces of cannabis and alcohol in his system but this would not have affected his driving.

Afterwards in a statement, Mr Sutcliffe's mother, Jacqueline, questioned the police guidelines over speed. She said: "Fatal accidents keep occurring when police officers are travelling at high speed and the current guidance on pursuit and following does not seem adequate to prevent fatalities like this happening in the future."

A Durham Police spokesman said that an investigation, overseen by the Police Complaints Authority, had exonerated PC Emerson of any blame and that the Crown Prosecution Service would not be pursuing a case against him.