Fireworks created impenetrable smog on night of fatal M5 crash, court told.
An impenetrable smog was created by a fireworks display staged close to the M5 motorway on the evening of a pile-up in which seven people were killed and dozens injured, a crown court has been told.
The combination of damp, humid, windless conditions and the smoke created by about 1,500 fireworks let off during a 15-minute display created the sort of smog familiar in the 1940s and 50s in London, it was claimed.
Opening the case for the prosecution, Peter Blair QC told the jury at Bristol crown court that scientists would explain how light could not penetrate such smog.
The organiser of the display, Geoffrey Counsell, is on trial and denies breaching legislation designed to stop the public being exposed to risks to their health and safety.
Blair said Counsell, trading as Firestorm Pyrotechnics, was contracted to stage the display at Taunton rugby football club's ground close to the M5 in Somerset in November 2011.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/18/fireworks-smog-fatal-m5-crash-court