Auckland, July 31 NZPA - A driver who killed two people in a high-speed car crash told police he was in a time machine and could become invisible above 100kmh.

In the High Court in Auckland this week Mark Paul Warren, 26, a sickness beneficiary, was sent to a mental institution after earlier being found not guilty of manslaughter and dangerous driving by reason of insanity.

Justice Geoffrey Venning committed Warren to the Henry Rongomau Bennett Centre, a facility in Hamilton for people with acute mental illness, The New Zealand Herald reported.

Warren was unlicensed when he was at the wheel of a car that collided with a four-wheel-drive vehicle on George Bolt Memorial Drive, near Auckland airport in Mangere, in December 2007.

Warren's passenger and a passenger in the other vehicle were killed, while the other driver spent two months in hospital.

Warren, who suffered from manic depression, told police he genuinely believed he could become invisible if he went above 100kmh.

A speed analysis concluded he was travelling up to 166kmh at the time of the crash.

NZPA AKL rl dj kn