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 at Redcar, Teesside, and had been securing a tailgate at the back of the vehicle when Dyson ploughed into him.

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

His partner of more than 20 years and mother to his twin sons, aged 20, was in the Transit van at the time of the crash on March 26.

Dyson, a former mechanic in the Army 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 out the car to a taxi firm 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, defending, said his client had professed never to drive again following the tragedy but it was revealed Dyson had been arrested for a driving offence committed three weeks after Mr Pickering's death.

He 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.