Bee blamed for fatal crash

Cavity wall installer Gavin Anstey, 23, took his eyes off the road after the insect flew into the cab of his Ford Transit works van and landed on his leg.

Lewes Crown Court head how the father-of-one smashed into a Fiat Seicento, killing 20-year-old front seat passenger Gemma Lee, of Southwater Road, St Leonards.

Miss Lee grew up in Bexhill.

Her boyfriend Martin Ward, who was driving, was trapped but survived the double fatal accident on the A27 at Selmeston near Lewes.

Moments before, Anstey had crashed into a Renault Clio driven by 20-year-old university student Jessica Nixon-Lea. She was airlifted to hospital but pronounced dead the next day.

At the scene Anstey told police: "I was driving along and a bee came in the window. I looked away for two seconds and the next thing I'm climbing out of the window."

Anstey, of Worthing, admitted two counts of causing death by dangerous driving following the fatal lunchtime crash on April 24 last year.

Prosecutor Alan Kent told the court: "He accepts that he spent too long concentrating on the insect rather than the road.

"The Crown can't establish what caused the defendant's inattention, all we can establish is that he was not looking at the road for some considerable time.

"He did not veer from his course, he didn't steer violently one way or the other, he simply was not looking where he was going.

"Whether that was because of the bee the Crown can't say. The Crown can't disprove the defendant's account of a bee landing on his leg."

Miss Lee was a floristry student at Plumpton College near Lewes and was due to sit an exam the day she died.

Defending, Hugh Williams told the court: "The defendant regrets the deaths of Jessica and Gemma more than anything.

"What he should have done is steer the other way and not been so scared. There's an element of acting with a normal fortitude that was not present here."

The court heard how Anstey had narrowly missed a BMW driven by Vincent Farrell who was in front of Miss Nixon-Lea.

In his statement, he told police: "All of a sudden I saw a large white van coming in the opposite direction heading straight for me.

"It was not totally on my side of the road but I would suggest its near side wheels were around the centre of the road at the centre markings."

The court how Mr Farrell swerved out of the way, causing the side of his car to scrape a hedge, before Anstey ploughed into his victims' cars.

Jailing him, Judge Anthony Niblett also banned Anstey from driving for five years until he has passed an extended re-test.

He told him: "The blame for these tragic events lies solely with you and your prolonged period of inattention. This is an un-answerable case of dangerous driving.

"No words of mine can begin to reflect the grief that has been suffered by all those who knew and loved Jessica and Gemma.

"No sentence can begin to compensate for the loss of these two young lives - vibrant, fully of promise and full of hope for the future."