IAN Carr is clearly not the sort who was ever going to take any notice of a lifetime driving ban.

He ignored a lifetime ban imposed in 1994 and carried on with his appalling record behind the wheel.

It ended with the death on New Year's Eve of Rebecca Sawyer, a beautiful six-year-old girl, critical injuries to her baby sister Kirsty, and unimaginable heartache for their family.

It is a case which brings back unwelcome memories of the death of six-year-old Leonie Shaw in Bishop Auckland last year.

Leonie died after being run down by hit-and-run driver Colin Meek - another career criminal. If justice had been done, Meek would not have been free to kill because he had only served two and a half years of a four-year sentence for stabbing a man in the back.

Meek faced a maximum sentence of ten years over the death of Leonie but was sentenced to serve only four. He'll be back on the streets all too soon and the chances are he'll harm someone else.

Let us hope that Ian Carr is not let off so lightly. This is a man with an appalling criminal record; a man with no regard for the law; a man who robbed a little girl of her life by driving a stolen car like a lunatic.

He needs to have the book thrown at him so hard that he cannot stand up in public for a long time.