The girlfriend of a man killed with his best friend in a car crash says she had a premonition of the tragedy.

Darren Kemp and his friend Jake Kelly, both fathers, died when the BMW they were in crashed into a lamp post.

The pair, who often lived with Darren's girlfriend Jane Mac in Lansdowne Place, Hove, left her home on Monday evening.

Jane, 52, said: "A little while later, a friend asked me the time and as I looked at my watch I saw it was just after 9pm.

"I had this dreadful premonition that something was wrong."

In the early hours of the morning Jane was awoken by police who broke the news of the double tragedy.

Jane said: "I was half expecting it to be the police but it was still a shock when they said they had bad news for me."

Earlier in the evening the pair had borrowed Jane's grey BMW to go to a pub in St James's Street, Brighton.

While there, Darren, 33, had a row with another man.

Jane said: "I don't know what the row was about but Darren said this man had let him down.

"He told me he was going to sort something out and would be back in half an hour.

"He left with Jake and that was the last time I saw them both alive."

Darren and Jake, 28, were killed when the car went out of control on the Brighton bypass and smashed into a lamp post.

The car was so badly damaged, rescuers were at first unable to tell what make it was.

Jane said: "I was a bit uneasy when I went home later and Darren wasn't there.

"But he was a bit of a Jack-the-lad and if he said he would be half-an-hour, it would often be a couple of hours before I saw him again.

"I didn't really go to sleep and when the doorbell went at 4.30am I thought it was him and Jake wanting to be let in.

"I snapped over the intercom expecting to hear Darren's voice but it was two policemen who wanted to talk to me."

She said Darren had been driving the car and toxicology tests had been carried out to see if he had been under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Jane said: "It is possible he had taken something that night. He took cocaine socially and smoked but he wasn't an addict. We won't know for sure until the report from the post-mortem is ready."

Jane met Darren through her son Danny, 26, about a month ago and despite their age difference they became close.

Jane said: "We had our ups and downs like most couples but mainly we got on really well together.

"We always managed to sort our differences out by talking it through and he never stormed off in a temper.

"He was a really nice bloke and I was a bit like a mum to him as well as his girlfriend.

"We would probably have settled down into a long-term relationship but we would never have got married. Both of us had been hurt like that before.

"I don't really know anything much about Darren's family or Jake's because they didn't speak about them.

"Darren had an 18-month-old son and Jake had a boy of four but I don't know where the mothers are living now."