A MECHANIC who mowed down and killed a man has been jailed after it was revealed he had never passed a driving test.

Andrew Dyson had previous convictions for motoring offences when he crashed his car into 42-year-old Peter Pickering after taking his eyes from the road to tune a radio.

Mr Pickering had stopped his Ford Transit van on the A1085 road in Redcar, east Cleveland, and had been securing its tailgate when Dyson ploughed into him.

The victim, who had switched on his hazard lights, was crushed between his vehicle and the defendant's Vauxhall Cavalier, and was thrown into the road, Teesside Crown Court heard yesterday.

His partner of more than 20 years was in the van at the time of the crash, on March 26.

Dyson, a former mechanic with the Royal Engineers, told a police officer at the scene, "I did not see him."

The court heard the father-of- one had been renting the car to a taxi company, but had gone to a petrol station for fuel when a driver did not turn up for work.

Shaun Dodds, prosecuting, said: "He accepted he was in a hurry."

Dyson, of Eglington Road, Middlesbrough, had never passed a driving test and previously amassed 15 penalty points for driving without a licence or insurance.

Nigel Soppitt, for Dyson, said his client had vowed never to drive again after the tragedy.

However, it was revealed that he had been arrested for a driving offence committed three weeks after Mr Pickering's death.

Mr Soppitt said: "He will live with this tragedy all his life. It will haunt him on a daily basis."

Jailing him for two-and-a-half years, Judge John Walford said it was a tragic case.

"There is nothing I can say or do that will ease the pain and grief that Mr Pickering's family and close friends have felt and will continue to feel," he said.

Dyson, who had pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving, no licence and no insurance, was disqualified from obtaining a licence for four years.