A VAN driver involved in a head-on crash which led to a two-year-old boy's death told a court yesterday he was overtaking a car, but other motorists would not let him back in.

Fighting back tears, Stephen Robinson, 45, said he simply could not avoid the crash on the A168 Thirsk to Northallerton road, North Yorkshire, in which Dylan Taylor died.

The self-employed plumber told Teesside Crown Court: "When I started the manoeuvre to overtake I could see a gap in the traffic and it was safe to go.

"I would have been able to get back in, but the gap closed. If there had been a gap there I would have pulled in. I just started the manoeuvre and events took over.

"The fact that this happened was that these motorists closed the gap on me, putting me in an impossible situation."

The court heard that witnesses in two other cars told the police that when Mr Robinson overtook them earlier they remarked that he was "an accident waiting to happen".

Dylan, of Beaconsfield Street, Northallerton, was with his mother and aunt being driven by family friend Helen Sayer on a swimming trip to Thirsk. He died from his injuries six days later.

PC Timothy Alderson, an accident investigator with North Yorkshire Police, said Mr Robinson told him at the scene: "It's all my fault, I was overtaking."

He said Mr Robinson was clearly in a state of shock, pale and holding his head in his hands. Shortly after, he was taken by ambulance to hospital.

Mr Robinson, of Dene Grove, Darlington, pleads not guilty to causing death by dangerous driving last November.

The case continues.