DANGEROUS driver Ioan Harding has been jailed for seven years for causing a Middlewich Road horror smash which killed two young fathers.

Ashen-faced Harding, of Ford Lane in Crewe, kept his head bowed as Mr Justice Roderick Evans told him he had ruined two young lives by his 'immature' driving, 'grossly excessive' speeding and road racing.

The 22-year-old remains unrepentant about the horrific smash which claimed the lives of 21-year-old Stephen Hicks and 20-year-old Adam Chadwick near Alvaston Hall in May last year.

Jurors convicted Harding at a Chester Crown Court trial in June after hearing evidence that he had been racing his friend, Mr Hicks, as they headed towards Nantwich in separate cars.

Taxi driver Kenneth Saxon, a crucial eyewitness, said the pair raced across the width of the carriageway for around three-quarters of a mile, with Mr Hicks driving on the wrong side of the road.

Mr Hicks lost control of his Ford Mondeo about half a mile past Alvaston Hall and ploughed into the white Rover of Mr Chadwick, an innocent motorist travelling towards Crewe.

Mr Hicks and Mr Chadwick both died. The collision was so devastating that it ripped Mr Hicks' car in half.

Mr Justice Evans said: "This was an extremely bad example of racing at excessive speed. I have no doubt at all that you and Stephen Hicks went out that night with the clear intention of racing.

"You went out on that road and drove at a speed which was grossly excessive and it got to the point that you were racing down the road, Stephen Hicks on the offside struggling to pass you.

"The inevitable consequence was that a totally innocent driver coming the opposite way was smashed into in such a way that it split one of the cars in two.

"It is quite clear that because you were not actively involved in the crash you have persuaded yourself and others that you were not to blame. That is a wholely false approach."

The court learned that Harding was caught driving without insurance just two months before the fatal smash, although he was insured at the time of the collision.

He was also fined £60 in 2001 for using abusive and threatening behaviour.

Defending, Mark LeBrocq said: "This defendant is in denial, not through deliberate dishonesty but because he has deluded himself that he has a lack of responsibility for this.

"That has been his way of coping with it."

Harding was disqualified from driving for eight years and must take an extended driving test on his release should he wish to get behind the wheel.