The truth of how York schoolgirl Lizzie Gilmour came to die on a dark and lonely stretch of the city's outer ring road may never be fully known, an inquest heard.

So many question-marks still surround the death of the Acomb teenager that an open verdict was recorded at her inquest.

Lizzie died from multiple injuries after being hit by a car on the A1237 outer ring road in mid-January,

Coroner Donald Coverdale told the hearing, attended by about 20 members of her family, he could not believe the "sensible and level-headed" Lowfield School pupil intended to take her own life or had lain in the road to make "a grand gesture" after falling out with her boyfriend on the telephone shortly before she left her home in St Stephen's Road that night.

But he was satisfied 15-year-old Lizzie made her own way to the spot near the Askham Lane junction, roughly a mile from her home, and lay down in the road.

He said: "There are so many curious aspects to this case and so many unanswered questions, that it's thoroughly perplexing for members of her family and for me to understand how and why she had got herself into this position and what must have been going through her mind."

"I don't know where the truth of this matter lies and I don't know that anyone will."

Lizzie's family, who welcomed the verdict, have vowed they will never stop searching for the full facts.

After the hearing, Lizzie's father Dave Gilmour said: "It's the verdict we wanted because the truth still hasn't come out. Now we have got time on our side and, with the help of family and friends, we will never stop trying to get to the truth."