Just 5 years for drink-drive killer

A drink-driver who killed two young nurses, including the carer of DJ Zoe Ball's son, was jailed for five-and-a-half years today.

Graham Travers, 21, admitting killing his passengers Vicki Browne and Natalie McCabe after he lost control while driving at 80mph in a 30mph limit.

He was two times over the legal drink drive limit, uninsured and unlicensed, and Sussex police said the accident was "the worst we have seen in 25 years of policing".

The nurses families' reacted with fury at what they saw as the lightness of the sentence. They were among more than 70 people in the public gallery at Lewes Crown Court, many in t-shirts reading: "You don't need a licence to kill". Some wept and shouted "shame" as sentence was passed.

Mrs Justice Rafferty told Travers: "Your driving was an exercise in arrogance. Like a petulant child you indulged your temper using that most dangerous of weapons, a motor car." He had pleaded guilty to two charges of causing death by dangerous driving, which carries a 10-year maximum sentence. A law raising the tariff to 14 years is waiting to come into force.

Outside court the families said they hoped the Attorney General would appeal to try to increase the sentence. Weeping-Ms Browne's mother Tarnyar said: "We expected justice but what we have is an insult. Is this all Vicki's life is worth?" Ms McCabe's mother Jane added: "He will be out in two years - one year for each person he killed."

The court heard Travers borrowed his boss's Mondeo but crashed in Brighton & Hove in October last year. His victims were thrown from the car but he clambered through a window and ran off. He was found later by police on a staircase in a nearby block of flats.

Ms McCabe, 21, died at the scene, Ms Browne, 19, died a month later and another passenger, Becky Fish, 20, lost a leg. Ms Browne worked at a day nursery near the home of DJ Ball and her husband Norman Cook, and helped care for their two-year-old son Woody.

The couple sent a bouquet to her funeral with the message: "To lovely Vicki, we will never forget all your help with Woody. Shine on! With love Norman Cook, Zoe Ball, Woody and Tash."

Travers, a part-time barman from Hove, also pleaded guilty to driving without insurance or a licence, and drink driving.

The court heard he barely knew the girls but offered them a lift home from a pub where they had been socialising. A witness said he saw the car driving without headlights at "a horrendous speed". The rear started to "fishtail" and the vehicle hit a parked car, flipped over and continued 150 metres before coming to a halt.

Travers's passengers were so tightly squeezed into the back they had been unable to fasten their seatbelts. A test showed at the time of the crash he would have had a blood alcohol reading of 125-165, compared with the legal limit of 80.

Stella Reynolds, defending, said Travers showed genuine remorse and had been on suicide watch in prison. At an earlier hearing Ms McCabe's father Ray had said: "We hope, if he has an ounce of decency, he will kill himself in prison so his family go through what we are going through."