A MOTORIST had a chilling premonition just minutes before a van ploughed into another car killing a two-year-old, a court heard yesterday.

Driver Daryl Harrison said to his wife, Caroline, of the Transit driver who had overtaken "he is an accident waiting to happen".

Just two miles up the road, they passed the wreckage of the van and a Peugeot car.

Teesside Crown Court heard how Stephen Robinson was overtaking in his Transit van on the blind brow of a hill when he collided head-on with a car, fatally injuring Dylan Taylor.

Dylan, of Beaconsfield Street, Northallerton, in North Yorkshire, was in the back of a Peugeot when it collided with the Transit on the A168, near Thornton-le-Beans, between Northallerton and Thirsk, on November 24, last year.

The court heard how other drivers had criticised Robinson's earlier overtaking.

Two people had attempted to record his registration number to report him to the police. They came forward after a police appeal following the fatality near the exit road to Thornton le Beans, said Andrew Dallas, prosecuting.

Robinson, 45, who had been working on a house in Thirsk, was returning home to Darlington for a business appointment.

Firemen cut off the roof of the car to rescue the little boy, who had been in a child's safety seat in the back of the Peugeot 106.

But their efforts were in vain and Dylan died six days later.

Dylan was with his mother and aunt being driven by a family friend, Helen Sayer, on a swimming trip to Thirsk. She was saved from serious injury by the driver's airbag.

Robinson, of Dene Grove, Darlington, pleads not guilty to causing the child's death on November 30 last year, by dangerous driving on November 24. The trial continues.