'I don't know what hit me' man tells coroner.

Byline: By Ben Glaze South Wales Echo 

The wife of a famous Welsh poet was killed after being flung onto the motorway when their car crashed, an inquest heard.

Dannie Abse's wife Joan, 78, was thrown from their Nissan Sunny when it collided with a Mini on the M4.

In a statement read to Pontypridd Coroner's Court, Mr Abse said: 'People say 'I don't know what hit me.' Well that's what really happened - I don't know what hit me.'

The couple were returning to their Ogmore-by-Sea home from a poetry reading at Porthcawl's Grand Pavilion when the accident happened eastbound on the M4 near Junction 37, Pyle.

A Mini driven by Alison Clayfield hit the Abses' Nissan Sunny from behind.

Mr Abse, who was 81 at the time of the crash last June, said: 'I heard the bang and the crash of the impact. It all happened in such an instant.

'I was lying with my face towards the ground. I shouted out 'Joan, are you all right?' and I got no reply.'

He said he found his wife of 54 years lying on the road.

'I pushed my way out, crawled under some metal and I saw my wife's head under the car,' he said.

'A youngish girl who seemed to be really hysterical came running up shouting, 'I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

Sobbing in the witness box, 26-year-old Miss Clayfield, who works at Swansea's Morriston Hospital, claimed her windscreen cracked and passenger airbag inflated prior to the crash.

Miss Clayfield said the Abses' Nissan Sunny, which Mr Abse was driving, had moved off the hard shoulder into her path.

'There was nothing in front of me - it came out of nowhere,' she said.

Accident investigator Pc Nic Cooper said Miss Clayfield struck the Abses from behind, sending their car out of control.

Pathologist Dr Alun Rees, who performed a post-mortem examination at the Princess of Wales Hospital, Bridgend, found Mrs Abse died from multiple injuries.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, coroner Philip Walters said there was conflicting evidence from Miss Clayfield and independent witnesses Stephen Tiffin and Graham Deacon, as to where the Abses' car had been on the motorway.

'Having heard Alison's evidence where she suggests the Nissan came off the hard shoulder, I don't think that evidence tallies with the evidence of Mr Deacon and Mr Tiffin.

'From my assessment, that vehicle was in the middle lane. Alison has probably made an error.'

In March, Alison Clayfield was fined pounds 1,200 and banned for a year after admitting careless driving over the accident which killed Joan Abse.