THE hit-and-run driver who left six-year-old Leonie Shaw to die in the street was again facing jail last night after he was found guilty of dangerous driving.

The Northern Echo can reveal that drug user Colin Meek, who has been on trial this week at Teesside Crown Court, is the unlicensed driver who hit the youngster as she crossed the road to buy sweets in April 2002.

The full details of his involvement in Leonie's death can only be reported now the trial has ended.

Her death provoked national outrage after Meek, who had been driving a powerful Rover car with seriously defective brakes, sped off leaving Leonie, of Bishop Auckland, County Durham, for dead.

He failed to give himself up, despite being named as the man wanted in connection with the tragedy.

He was eventually caught after a police manhunt and a poster campaign by The Northern Echo.

Meek, who has a history of violence, was banned from driving for life and jailed for four years - but was released in December 2004 after serving only half his sentence.

Months later, high on heroin, he got behind the wheel of a car and drove at speeds of up to 100mph as he tried to evade police after a burglary at the Woolworth store, in Barnard Castle, County Durham.

Yesterday, the jury in his trial for dangerous driving and driving while disqualified found him guilty of both offences on 10-1 majority verdicts after three-and-a-half hours of deliberation.

Last night, Leonie's mother, Michelle Aldworth, 36, told The Northern Echo that Meek's actions could easily have ended the life of someone else's child.

She said: "He should have gone down for life last time. It should have been life for a life.

"He wasn't man enough to admit that he was driving this time. It is just as well it was the middle of the night and the roads were quiet.

"It could have been somebody else's bairn."

Ms Aldworth, who has two other daughters, Jade, 14, and Emily, six, added: "He showed no remorse. Nothing matters to him. He is scum.

"He left us to pick up the pieces of our lives, but we will never be able to do that.

"He should see what me and my family have been through and are still going through.

"Even if he was locked up for life, it would not really matter to me. He can't ever mend what he has done."

Leonie would have been 11 now and at Bishop Barrington School, in Bishop Auckland, with Jade.

Her mother added: "There is never a time when I am not thinking about what she would have been doing."

Leonie was hit as she crossed the A688 near her home with a friend. She died the next day in hospital after suffering head, leg and internal injuries.

Meek admitted causing her death by dangerous driving when he appeared at Leeds Crown Court in August 2002.

In mitigation, it was said he drove off because his girlfriend and her two-year-old daughter - a playmate of Leonie's - were in the car at the time.

The jury at his trial this week heard how Meek, formerly of Salvin Street, Spennymoor, County Durham, was released from prison on licence after two years' imprisonment and went to live in a hostel in Gateshead.

But he was thrown out of the premises and was living in a car with Michael Collier, of no fixed address, at the time of the burglary.

The pair and an unidentified man took part in the early-morning ram-raid last May and stole £2,000 worth of mobile phones, to which they both pleaded guilty.

Despite being banned from driving for life, Meek drove away from the smash-and-grab in Collier's Mazda 626 car, and was pursued by police cars and a force helicopter from the A1M, near Scotch Corner, through Redworth and Shildon, before they were caught in Coundon, County Durham.

Martin Towers, prosecuting, said Meek failed to stop, drove on the wrong side of the road, and drove at speeds of 100mph in 30mph and 40mph zones.

Meek accepted he had been disqualified from driving at the time but denied he had been the getaway driver in the burglary.

When he was arrested, he told police: "I have not driven a motor car since the time I knocked the girl over."

Giving evidence in court, he claimed he had been set up by police, an allegation denied by Detective Constable Scott Denham, of Bishop Auckland CID.

Meek shook his head as the verdicts were read out yesterday.

As he was led away, he shouted at Det Con Denham: "You stitched me up you f*****g b*****d", before spitting at him from the dock.

Meek and Collier will be sentenced on March 10 by Judge Peter Fox.

It was Judge Fox who was criticised by Leonie's family in September 2002 for sentencing Meek to only four years out of a maximum ten years for her death.

Judge Fox also sentenced Meek, who has a string of previous convictions for violent offences, in 1999 to four-and-a-half years in jail for wounding a man in a knife attack. He served two-and-a-half years.