A HIT-AND-RUN driver who left his friend to die after a high-speed crash was caught when police found minute DNA traces on the car airbag, a court was told.

David Munn was driving a high-powered Vauxhall Cavalier RSI at more than 100mph when he lost control last Christmas Eve.

He crawled out of the wreckage and fled, leaving passenger Graham Foster, who had been flung from the car, dying from multiple injuries.

Robert Adams, prosecuting told Newcastle Crown Court that when police tracked Munn down later the same day, he denied having had any involvement in the accident on the A1 Western by-pass near the Team Valley turn-off at Gateshead.

But he was finally forced to admit his guilt after being confronted by damning DNA evidence taken from saliva he left when his head hit the car's airbag during the impact.

After Munn, 35, of Harras Bank, Birtley, was jailed for five years at Newcastle Crown Court, Mr Foster's partner, Tania Hannon, 34, said she and the couple's two sons, Kevin, 16, and Carl, 15, had been left devastated by his death.

She called for longer sentences for drivers who kill.