A mother whose daughter died in a country-lane car smash has hit out at the sentence given to the drunken driver who killed her.

Matthew Fish is beginning four and a half years in jail after running away from the wreckage of his crashed car leaving two fatally injured friends inside.

He went home, got some beer from the fridge and got drunk in nearby fields.

The judge had warned Fish, an alcoholic, that he could have given him up to ten years but accepted he had shown "remorse."

Bradford Crown Court heard Fish's Renault Scenic somersaulted several times after he lost control of the "lethal weapon" in Tong Lane, Tong, Bradford, in the early hours of August 3 last year.

Passengers 33-year-old Philippa Collins and Fish's friend since childhood James Baines, 30, were pronounced dead at the scene. Fish, 31, was not arrested until five hours later at his home in Bramstan Gardens, Bramley, Leeds.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of causing death by careless driving while twice over the alcohol limit. He was yesterday sentenced to four-and-a-half years for each victim, to run concurrently, banned from driving for five years and told that he will have to take an extended test to regain his licence.

Philippa's mum Denise Collins, of Bramley, said nothing could replace her daughter who was 'bubbly and beautiful'.

"The sentence is not enough, we all believe it should have been at least double for what he did.

"There isn't a day goes by when I don't think of her and I don't think we'll ever get over it," she said.

On the night of the tragedy Fish was drinking in a pub with Mr Baines and Miss Collins later came in with a friend.

Fish claimed to have only drunk two pints of lager when he left the pub at 1.15am and offered Miss Collins and Mr Baines a lift home in his car.

Witnesses described the 'screech' of his tyres and loud music as he drove off.

And three-and-a-half miles down Tong Lane, Fish lost control of the car, he tried to correct it but the vehicle overturned over a distance of 175 metres, some of which was uphill, and scattered debris along the road.

A cab driver saw the Renault's headlights as it moved quickly behind him, said Mr Howard. He then heard a bang and saw the Renault "barrel-rolling" in the road.

Fish fled from the scene, failed to telephone the emergency services, and went to his home where he took some beer from the fridge and got drunk in nearby fields.

Sentencing Fish, Judge Robert Bartfield said: "You got behind the wheel of a vehicle with so much alcohol in you that is was a lethal weapon on our roads."

Judge Bartfield said he accepted Fish was an alcoholic and said that he could have jailed him for a maximum of ten years.

"I bear in mind that that you feel genuine remorse for what you did. No sentence I can ever pass will heal the broken lives of the families of these two people. The sentence cannot compensate in any way shape or form for the loss of these two lives."

Howard Crowson, mitigating, told the court that Fish, who is separated from his wife after depressions and an addiction to alcohol, had been reduced to a "nervous wreck" by the accident.

He said: "When the police came upon him he was breaking down at the top of the stairs sobbing uncontrollably saying that he had killed two people.

"He knows that he is responsible for the deaths. It's a tragedy that he can never put right."