Driver’s body lay on M40 for seven days

A MAN lay undiscovered for a week beneath the wreck of his car on a motorway’s central reservation after losing control in the middle of the night and ploughing into trees.

Plasterer sedji sejdiu’s rented Vauxhall astra left the M40 possibly after swerving to avoid a deer or after he fell asleep at the wheel, an inquest heard.

he crashed into a wooded section of the central reservation after leaving the northbound carriageway between Banbury and Gaydon – the impact ‘continuing to rotate the car and causing it to leave the ground’.

But Mr sejdiu, 40, was not found until a week later, on april 12 last year, when an off-duty police officer spotted the wreckage ‘almost completely obscured’ by greenery and suspended between trees, Oxford Coroner’s Court heard.

Detective Chief Inspector aidan Donohoe, who was driving at 5mph in traffic caused by another accident, said there would have been ‘no chance’ of seeing the car at normal speed. PC Brian Perry, who was among officers who found Mr sejdiu dead on the grass, said he was unable to see the car ‘until I was right next to it’.

Police pinpointed the time of the crash to 4.30am on april 5 after the astra was picked up on camera.

Coroner Nicholas Graham said finding Mr sejdiu sooner ‘may not have made any difference to the tragic outcome’. the father of one, of Maida Vale, west London, died of multiple injuries. he had taken cocaine, which may have impaired his ability to drive, the court heard.

Collision investigator siobhan O’Connell said there was no evidence of braking, third party involvement or a vehicle defect. the driver’s loss of control was probably down to ‘impairment due to drugs and/or fatigue’, and he may have ‘over corrected after steering to avoid an animal such as a deer’.

Cars made after May 2018 have a

‘Car suspended between trees’

function which automatically sends an alert in a collision, but the astra involved was an older model.

Mr sejdiu’s sister, Elvira Lee, told the hearing the family had no idea why he had been travelling near Banbury. she said her brother had become ‘extremely depressed’ after the breakdown of a relationship in 2015 left him unable to secure access to his young daughter.

Concluding that Mr sejdiu died in a road traffic collision, Mr Graham said: ‘It’s possible that the taking of cocaine may have had an effect, although that is not obvious. It may have been that he simply fell asleep.’