AN APPRENTICE butcher was killed in a head-on collision after losing control of his car as he travelled to work, an inquest heard.

Adam Madden, 18, of Heald Lane, Bacup, was described as ‘hardworking, well-mannered and popular’.

He was driving on Bacup Road, Cliviger at around 5.20am on Thursday, March 8 when the accident occurred.

Mr Madden has worked for around a year at Dunbia’s butchery academy in Sawley, where he was an apprentice butcher.

He had been en-route to his manager Andy Denson’s Padiham home, with whom he would then travel to work, but he never arrived.

A hearing at Burnley Magistrates’ Court heard Mr Madden, who had passed his test first time on January 18, described as a ‘safe driver’.

The court was told the former St Joseph’s, Stacksteads, pupil knew the road well as it was his usual morning route.

Warren Smith told the inquest that on that morning he was driving his Mitsubishi L200 pick-up away from Burnley on Bacup Road.

He described the conditions as dry and dark and said there was no street lighting on that stretch of road.

As he approached a slight bend he saw a car coming towards him on the wrong side of the road, he estimated its speed at between 30 and 50mph.

The driver’s side of Mr Madden’s car then collided with the front of the van at speed. A post-mortem examination gave the cause of death as multiple injuries.

Mr Smith sustained chest and leg injuries in the crash.

PC Robert Newcombe, from Lancashire police’s accident investigation unit said that he had concluded that Mr Madden’s car had lost contact with the road surface on the bend and drifted on to the opposite carriageway.

The driver’s side of the car had taken the full impact.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, East Lancashire coroner Richard Taylor said the incident was ‘tragic’.

He offered his condolences to his family and said: “By all accounts Adam was a decent, hardworking and well-brought up young man.”