A WOMAN whose car was spun round 180 degrees by the force of an articulated lorry, today told a court it was being driven too fast.After the lorry collided with her Toyota Starlet it crashed with a Honda Accord killing its three elderly occupants.

A WOMAN whose car was spun round 180 degrees by the force of an articulated lorry, today told a court it was being driven too fast.

After the lorry collided with her Toyota Starlet it crashed with a Honda Accord killing its three elderly occupants.

Susan Lewis told Ipswich Crown Court she had been driving her silver car along the A144 at Ilketshall St Lawrence near Bungay when she noticed the lorry behind her.

"It was a reasonable distance behind me," said Mrs Lewis, who regularly uses the stretch of road before turning right.

"I began to indicate right at the telephone box on the left. The turn is on a bend, it's not sharp but it is a strange bend so I always give a lot of warning to those behind me," added Mrs Lewis, a pub landlady.

"I started slowing down between the telephone box and the turning and I positioned my car right opposite the turning in the middle of the road. There was a stream of traffic coming towards me so I had to stop and wait.

"I saw the lorry coming up behind me, he was close, but not alarmingly close, but when I started to brake he kept going. I looked in the mirror, he did not slow down, I thought he was going to hit me."

The court heard that when the lorry collided with Mrs Lewis' car it "spun" round so it was facing the other way. Mrs Lewis said: "The last I saw he was veering off to the other side of the road."

Mrs Lewis who suffered whiplash as a result of the accident, added: "When I came to a standstill I was completely confused, I did not know what was going on."

Mrs Lewis said she saw that the lorry had jack-knifed and that there was a silver Honda Accord with extensive frontal damage. She said: "The lorry driver should have gone slower, not gone so quick, he should not have been speeding."

The lorry driver, 35-year-old Steven Williams, of Jenkins Green, Lowestoft, denies causing death by dangerous driving on July 10 last year.

Ivan Jeffery, 60, his wife Pamela, 65 and her elderly mother Constance Rome, who was in her 80s, were all killed in the crash. They were from Downham Market, Norfolk.

The trial continues.