Two boys aged just 6 and 7 were “desperately upset” and acted on the “spur of the moment” seconds before they were killed crossing a motorway, an inquest found today.

Kieran Coupe and his friend Guy Davies died from multiple injuries after being struck by two cars on the M56 near Runcorn as they tried to cross with their scooters.

Unsure which way to go, and upset after a telling off, they were trying to make their way home in the darkness to their houses in Preston Brook, at 7.20pm on October 24 2007 when the accident happened.

Today, the inquest at Warrington Town Hall concluded their deaths were unintentional and the coroner Nicholas Rheinberg recorded a narrative verdict.

“These were very young children,6 and 7 and quite probably absolutely terrified," said Mr Rheinberg.

“They were in alien surroundings, out way past the time they should be home and desperately upset. They acted on the spur of the moment without thought or consideration.”

Kieran, 7, and Guy, 6, had wandered off that afternoon despite being told not to stray from their homes.

A witness told the court she saw the boys hiding under an industrial digger at about 6pm, an hour before the collision, on land near the motorway where engineers had fixed broken underground water pipes.

The digger’s windows had been smashed and the woman confronted them about it, asking whether they were responsible. A helicopter was hovering nearby, and she told them that the crew was looking for whoever had vandalised the digger.

The boys left the site but doubled back onto it as she left, she said.

The inquest heard it is possible the boys, scared of the dark and disorientated in the woodland where they were playing, headed through a gap in the fence around the site towards the lights of the motorway.

What happened next cannot be explained for certain, said the coroner. But from witness accounts and calls logged with the police, it is thought the boys somehow managed to cross the eastbound carriageway heading to Manchester.

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