A couple are dismayed that a motorist escaped with a fine and a ban after he admitted driving carelessly in a crash which killed their son and his girlfriend.

Tony Pickett, 38, and Lucy Hampshire, 31, who lived in Rowlands Road, Worthing, both died in the tragic accident but Mr Pickett's five-year-old son, Joshua, crawled free of the wreckage.

Joshua later told how his father had said he loved him with his last dying breath.

The accident happened when their Peugeot 305 was in a collision with a Ford Escort driven by Alun Davies, 25, of Wellington Road, Watford, in Ditchling Road, Brighton, on March 2 this year.

Davies was driving a company car and suffered a broken collar bone in the crash.

He admitted a charge of careless driving and has now been fined £300, banned from driving for 12 months and ordered to pay £35 costs at Brighton Magistrates Court.

The decision has shocked Mr Pickett's parents, Margaret and Dick Pickett, of Downsway, Woodingdean, Brighton, who said justice had not been done.

They said the ruling did not carry enough weight to deter other motorists from driving carelessly.

The maximum penalty for careless driving is a fine and discretionary disqualification with three to nine points on the licence.

Courts cannot send motorists to prison for a charge of careless driving, even if deaths were involved in the accident.

The ruling will also add fuel to the cause of campaigners who are calling for tougher sentences in the wake of the case of Jeff Tooley, a police officer who was mown down while on duty in Shoreham two years ago.

Convicted robber John Heaton was originally jailed for seven years for causing the death of PC Tooley by dangerous driving. There was outrage over the sentence of only seven years imposed which intensified when this was later cut to five years.

Mrs Pickett said she was upset by the court's decision.

She said: "Even if they fined him thousands of pounds and put him in prison for 100 years it would not bring back my son and his girlfriend, who could soon have become my daughter-in-law.

"It will not make any difference to our loss and to Joshua who will grow up without his father.

"But £300 is not that much and he has only been banned for 12 months.

"We heard that this might mean he will lose his job but we have lost our son.

Joshua's mother, Susan Ward, who lives in Lancing, said: "It's not a sentence at all considering he killed two people and almost killed my little boy. He probably earns £300 in a day.

"Joshua's a happy little five-year-old. He still talks about his daddy and he obviously does miss him."