A Porsche Carrera barrel-rolled three times before flipping onto its roof fatally injuring its 21-year-old passenger, a court heard yesterday.

The car went out of control on the A650 Drighlington bypass leaving Richard Whitelock trapped in the twisted wreckage.

Barry Sylvester Holmes, 33, of Chelker House Farm, Addingham, near Ilkley, denies causing the death of Mr Whitelock by dangerous driving late on July 19, 2006.

The jury at Leeds Crown Court has heard Holmes repeatedly lied to the police after the crash, insisting he was not at the wheel of the blue Porsche 911.

Prosecutor Andrew Dallas said Holmes now admitted he was driving Mr Whitelock’s car with the young man in the passenger seat.

Mr Whitelock, of River Place, Gargrave, near Skipton, died of multiple injuries the day after the crash.

PC Alan Broadbent, a collision investigator with West Yorkshire Police, told the court the bypass was well lit and on the night of the accident the weather was dry and visibility good.

A line of lamp-posts was unlit after the Porsche demolished two and tripped out a row.

PC Broadbent said the road was straight at the accident scene with a 60mph speed limit.

There were a series of undulations on the carriageway where vents had been put in because the bypass was built on a landfill site.

PC Broadbent said the Porsche was on its correct side of the road when the driver began to lose control. It rotated clockwise, crossed the carriageway, mounted the kerb onto a grass embankment and struck a lamppost.

It barrel-rolled at least three times, rotated laterally and came to rest upside down on top of a second lamppost.

PC Broadbent said it was 118 metres from the beginning of tyre marks on the road to where the Porsche came to rest.

The car’s body shell was twisted and extensively damaged and the front bumper torn off.

PC Broadbent said there was no defect to the car’s braking system or steering before the accident.

The Porsche was fitted with road-worthy, high performance tyres.

Mr Dallas has told the jury that the Crown’s case is the Porsche was doing 103mph when it crashed.

The trial continues.