Speed was the likely contributing factor in an accident that cost two men their lives on New Year's Eve, an inquest heard.

Billy Brown and Johnny Lyons, previously known a Johnny Butlin, were returning from Maidstone to their homes near Hastings, when Mr Brown, who was driving, lost control of their Mercedes C200 which left the road and ploughed into a tree.

The accident happened at 10.35pm on the A229 just below Linton Hill at the point that the road takes a sweeping right turn.

PC Duncan Swallow, who investigated the accident, examined CCTV footage from Rankin's Farm just before the accident site, which indicated the Mercedes had been travelling at 86mph. The speed limit was 60mph.

The effect of the impact was so great that the engine left the car and travelled further down the road.

The roof of the Mercedes impacted into the tree and embedded in its trunk.

The corpses of the men were trapped until the car could be cut open by fire-fighters.

They were declared dead at the scene and post mortems gave the cause of death as multiple injuries.

The inquest heard that Mr Lyons, 37, a single man from Mount Joy in Battle, had been "significantly intoxicated" with a mixture of alcohol, cocaine and opiates.

However, the driver, Mr Brown, 36, also single, from Cumberland Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, had only trace elements of those substances in his blood and not to a degree thought likely to have affected his driving capability.

The inquest at the Archbishop's Palace in Maidstone on Monday heard that just before he left the road, Mr Brown had passed another car going in the opposite direction.

PC Swallow said that although there was no evidence to suggest the other car was directly involved in the crash, it was possible that in the momentary darkness after the lights of the other vehicle, Mr Brown had not seen the bend.

A police appeal for the driver of the other car to come forward was not answered and there were no witnesses to the crash itself.

Mr Brown's father, Kevin Brown, pointed out there had been other fatal crashes on the same bend.

In fact they were the sixth and seventh people to die on the same stretch of road since 2013.

Before their deaths, Madalin-Constantin Lungoci, 22, from Hastings, had been the last person to lose his life there, following a head-on collision with another driver who had lost control of his vehicle on December 4.

Coroner Alan Blunsdon said he had already had assurances from Kent Highways officers that they had been out to examine the safety of the bend since the accident.

Although the road surface was not at fault, they had decided to replace the central road studs, replace or clean the verge marking posts, "'refresh" the road markings and test the skid quality of the road surface and the drainage.

Mr Blunsdon said that he would not be making any further recommendations.

He concluded both men had died as a result of road traffic collision due to driver error.

Both men were known to the police and had served time in prison for a failed plot together to steal £30,000 from a security van.

Mr Brown at the time of his death was out of prison on licence after being given a six-year sentence for robbery and firearms offences.

Mr Lyons had also been jailed previously for stabbing a man.