French police question driver

FRENCH police were questioning a British lorry driver last night as they launched a homicide investigation into the country's worst road accident in a decade.

At least 17 people died and 49 were injured, including three Britons, after fire engulfed dozens of vehicles involved in a pile-up on the Paris-Bordeaux motorway in south-west France.

The accident happened 40 miles north of Bordeaux after the trailer of a British lorry caught fire. The driver pulled over to the side of the road to extinguish the blaze, but a lorry and an empty tanker collided in the smoke and exploded, and other vehicles piled into the rear.

Sarah Miller, 37, of Colchester, Essex, her American husband Joseph, 29, Julie Griffin, 28, of Gloucestershire, and Robert Oretti, 29, of Newbury, Berkshire, suffered minor injuries.