An accountancy student was killed along with his best friend in a 100mph crash while holding a three-way conference call with his cousins at the wheel of his car, an inquest has heard.
Abdullah Waseem had been using a Bluetooth headset to talk to one cousin in Pakistan and another in Canada when he lost control of his Ford Focus on a bend.
As the car suddenly veered off the road, one of the cousins on the call heard screaming and then listened in horror as the vehicle ploughed into a tree in a nearby field.
Concerned, the cousin stayed on the line and tried to get a response from the 22-year-old.
Abdullah Waseem (pictured above) had previously driven a BMW, which was later replaced by the Ford Focus
Abdullah Waseem (left) and Wajid Ahmed (right) were described as best friends and referred to each other as brothers
Another motorist then stopped at the scene and found Abdullah’s mobile phone in the road, picked it up and reportedly said: ‘Two of your mates seem dead to me’.
Abdullah had been studying accounting at Manchester Metropolitan University and the front seat passenger Wajid Ahmed, 18, who had been studying business management at Staffordshire University, both died at the scene.
Police believe the driver may have been distracted whilst involved in the three-way call.
The tragedy occurred at 11.30pm on September 30 2018 as the pair, both from Stoke-on-Trent and who played cricket together at Alsagar Cricket Club were travelling home along the A536, Gawsworth in Cheshire after finishing a Saturday night shift at a takeaway where they worked part time in Macclesfield.
Abdullah Waseem had been driving home from Macclesfield when he was using the Bluetooth headset
In a statement Yousaf Saleem, Abdullah’s cousin said he had been working in Canada when he received a call from Abduallah, which he later learnt was a conference call with him and his other cousin in Pakistan.
‘I was sitting in my car by the side of the road as I had been doing deliveries. This was happening as Abdullah was driving home from Macclesfield and he was using a Bluetooth headset.
Wajid Ahmed (pictured above) had been studying business management at Staffordshire University
‘The conversation was normal – he confirmed that he was travelling home from work. I did not know that Wajid Ahmed was in the car with him at the time, but I know that he is a friend of his. He had only recently booked to come to Canada to see me. I hadn’t seen Abdullah in about nine years when we both lived in Pakistan.’
During the call Mr Saleem said he heard a loud scream, followed by a series of noises, which he interpreted to be the car crash.
‘My initial thought was that he crashed and when he didn’t speak, I became concerned. A few minutes later, I heard a deep, distinctive accent. I was speaking Urdu with Abdullah, but then I changed to English.
‘He said: ‘two of your mates seem dead to me’. I asked him to call the emergency services, but he said he wasn’t calling the emergency services and wanted to leave. I got Ali to disconnect from the call and I got him to call my uncle. I kept the phone connected then I heard a different accent and it told me that help was on its way and he tried to calm him down.
‘I kept the call connected for 55 minutes. I was very upset and I travelled back to England to see my family.’
Kelvin Bennett, who was the first person at the scene of the collision, told the Macclesfield hearing: ‘I was travelling about 50mph and as I got to a corner, I could see some headlights in my rear-view mirror. I saw the headlights turn off and then I looked in my wing mirror and there was an enormous puff of smoke.
Abdullah Waseem (left and right) is said to have become distracted by the phone call he was engaged in
‘If you’ve ever seen one of them alien shows, it was like a spaceship and the lights did a 90 degree turn and then disappeared. Then, there was smoke. The only thing I saw was headlights but then I could not see them. They were about five to six seconds behind me. I stopped immediately and turned around to and looked for them.’
Mr Bennett said he stopped and got out of the car but that it was too dark to see.
‘The vehicle seemed to be suspended in the air and I didn’t want to get too close, just in case it was unstable. I looked around for help and I managed to flag down two people and I asked this woman if she could contact the emergency services. The man had some lighting equipment, he was some sort of mechanic.
Wajid Ahmed (pictured above) died as a result of fatal and un-survivable injuries he sustained while a front seat passenger
‘We went up to the vehicle, but we didn’t want to get too close so we left them in the vehicle and stepped back from it for our own safety. I found the phone on the floor which had been thrown from the car. I was speaking to someone on the phone and I told them there had been an accident. I spoke to this man on the phone the whole time. I didn’t leave, I stayed.’
‘I have been living with this for six months and I think about it on a daily basis. We waited for experts to turn up and, when they did, they had equipment they could use to get them out.’
PC Jim Rodgers of Cheshire Police who investigated the crash said: ‘There were some incoming and outgoing messages from Abdullah’s phone between 23:21 and 23:29. The crash was reported at 23:41. I cannot say who was using the phone, it could have been Wajid using the phone on Abdullah’s behalf but we can say that there was a phone call at the time of collision.
Abdullah’s father Waseem Akbar, 49, who runs the takeaway where the two dead men worked said Abdullag and Wajid had been very close friend and that they referred to each other as brothers.
He said: ‘They were very close with each other. The car he was driving was his car, but I bought it for him. He had the car for about eight or nine months.
‘He had a BMW before that. There was an accident when his car was parked up and somebody drove into his BMW. I know that he would use a earpiece when driving, which he had in the right side of his ear.’
PC Kevin Sweeney, a forensic road traffic collision investigator, said: ‘A number of items of evidence were recorded and they were then interpreted. It’s not possible to say exactly when the driver lost control of the car, but the tyre marks suggest that he had already lost control of the car by the time he hit the grass verge.
Abdullah Waseem (pictured above) died as a result of fatal injuries he sustained when the vehicle he was driving came off the road
‘The damage to the car was significant and the roof had collapsed in. It collided with a tree and passed through a bush where it rested.On a balance of probabilities, I would say the car was going between 80 and 100mph.
‘It is possible that Abdullah Waseem became distracted by the phone call he was engaged in, but this is necessarily the full case. Research into driving distractions primarily focuses on telephone calls – but there’s no distinction between hands free and normal telephone calls. It’s the fact that the attention is being diverted away from driving the car.’
Recording a conclusion of death due to road traffic collision coroner Claire Welch said: ‘It’s irrefutable that Abduallah was in a three-way phone call with his cousins at the time of the collision.
‘He died as a result of fatal and un-survivable injuries he sustained when the vehicle he was driving, in excess of the speed limit while he was in a telephone call, came off the road and collided with a tree.
‘Wajid Ahmed died as a result of fatal and un-survivable injuries he sustained while a front seat passenger.’