An Afghan migrant who travelled through Iran, Turkey, Greece and Germany to get to the UK was killed when he tried to cross a busy motorway in Kent, an inquest heard.

Afghan Mohammed Akram, 22, was with a group of around five men when he was hit by a van and then a car on the M20 by junction eight for Leeds near Maidstone, Kent.

Following the 7am collision, the London-bound carriageway had to be shut for seven hours on October 14 last year.

Lorries queuing on the M20 between junctions eight and nine. A migrant was killed when he tried to cross the motorway near junction eight

Phillip Ritchie, the driver of the white VW Caddy which hit Mr Akram, said at Tuesday's inquest in Maidstone that the men he saw 'looked like ghosts'.

He said: 'It was dark at the time. Suddenly I could see four maybe five people in the road all following each other, sort of spaced out.

'I have done a double take. It looked so unreal. They looked like ghosts.'

He told the hearing he had tried to brake, but it was too late.

He said he didn't swerve as he feared hitting the other migrants or crashing into the central reservation.

Mr Akram's body was then run over by another car and he died at the scene from multiple injuries.

Detective Constable David Holmes, of Kent Police's Serious Collision Unit, said Europol had helped the force to piece together Mr Akram's movements.

He had left Afghanistan 18 months earlier with a friend and had paid a people smuggler for travel into Iran.

Map showing junction eight of the M20 near to where Mr Akram was run over by a car and a van and died

He then went through Turkey, Greece and Germany, where he registered as a refugee.

His ID card was found near the body, but in order to identify Mr Akram, his father in Afghanistan had to make a dangerous nine-hour journey to Kabul to give a DNA sample.