A BANNED driver who killed a passenger after crashing while high on a cocktail of drink and drugs was jailed yesterday for five years.

Lee Aaron Fitzgerald had drunk at least five pints of lager and taken cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis before getting behind the wheel of a friend's car.

He picked up 20-year-old Katharine Davis - who had been out with a friend to celebrate getting her first pay packet - before the hatchback overturned when it was being followed by police.

Teesside Crown Court heard how Katharine, a trainee call centre worker, suffered crush injuries and died at the scene of the crash, in West View Road, Hartlepool, in the early hours of October 1, last year.

Once-promising footballer Fitzgerald, 25, suffered serious leg injuries and had to be cut free from the wrecked Rover 216Gti, while his two other passengers escaped with minor injuries.

Fitzgerald, of Collingwood Road, Hartlepool, who admitted causing death by dangerous driving, was also banned from the roads for seven years and ordered to take an extended test.

Judge Peter Armstrong was told that Fitzgerald had been disqualified for 16 months eight months before the fatal crash, which happened on a night when he was out with mates celebrating his birthday.

Katharine had been out with her friend, Michael Harle, and the pair asked stranger Fitzgerald for a lift home. Car owner David Gascoigne was in the front seat when the accident happened.

The car was being followed from the Headland part of town at speeds of up to 80mph in a 30mph zone when Fitzgerald lost control, clipped a central reservation, collided with a lamppost and overturned.

Defence barrister Graham Reeds described his client as "regretful and remorseful" and said he had suffered nightmares about what happened.

Mr Reeds handed Judge Armstrong a pile of glowing references from people who know Fitzgerald, and a letter from his girlfriend which painted the picture of a caring and loving father and partner.

The judge told him: "You are going to have the benefit of a life, which Katharine Davis will not. The impact her death has had on her parents has been devastating.

"This is every parents' nightmare - to lose a child - and no parent ought to have to go through that experience. They will have to live with that for the rest of their lives. There is no doubt you will - the knowledge that you killed an innocent young girl."