A policeman who sped through a red light and killed a motorist has been fined just £2,000.

Karen Stagg's husband Graeme, 61, spoke of his anger after Nicholas Andrews-Faulkner was cleared yesterday of causing death by dangerous driving and convicted instead of a lesser charge of careless driving.

Andrews-Faulkner, 44, from Hassocks, was taking a drunken prisoner back to Crawley police station in his marked Mitsubishi Shogun police vehicle when the accident occurred, killing Mrs Stagg.

Road safety campaigners dismissed the sentence as "an insult" as it emerged a homeless alcoholic from Sussex was jailed for nine months on the same day for breaking into churches for shelter.

Mr Stagg, from East Grinstead, said: "The way in which Mr Andrews-Faulkner drove the police 4x4 resulted in the death of a precious wife and mother and serious injury to a young boy - two entirely blameless and innocent people.

"He has wrought unimaginable grief and unhappiness upon me, my sons Philip and Justin, my daughter Elizabeth and Karen's eldest son Ashley, her mother Maureen, her brother Stephen, the rest of our two families and her many loving friends and colleagues.

"Nicholas Andrews-Faulkner, while accepting that he was the cause of her death, consistently refused to accept responsibility for his actions."

The officer was given nine points on his licence at Winchester Crown Court, disqualified from driving for four years, ordered to pay £1,000 costs and told he must retake his driving test.

Passing sentence, the Recorder of Winchester, Judge Michael Brodrick, said: "I take this to be one of the worst cases of careless driving that is likely to come before the courts."

Meanwhile, Martin Allard, 40, is today facing nine months behind bars after admitting breaking into two churches and a nursery where he was looking for food and shelter for the night.

Lewes Crown Court heard he he had no money and nowhere to go when he broke into Haywards Heath Baptist Church on January 30 and then the Evangelical Church, in Hurstpierpoint, two days later.

Brigitte Chaudhry, of the charity RoadPeace, said: "This is saying that property is much more important than someone's life - death on the road is like a third-rate death.

"Being convicted of a minor offence for a death is completely innapropriate. The driver could be charged with the same thing for driving into a bollard or driving without lights on."

Winchester Crown Court heard Andrews-Faulkner's blue lights and sirens were switched on when he went through a red light at a junction near Gatwick Airport, in Crawley, on January 22 last year.

At that moment Mrs Stagg, 47, went through a green light at the junction and her car pulled out into the path of the police vehicle.

The court heard that Andrews-Faulkner was driving at 48mph in a 40mph zone when the fatal crash happened.

Mrs Stagg, an IT systems manager for the Civil Aviation Authority, was killed almost instantly.

Her son Philip, who was a front seat passenger, suffered a broken arm and concussion.

Mr Stagg, 61, was test driving a BMW just in front of her at the time and had the nightmare of having to deal with the carnage the crash caused.

In a witness impact statement read out in court, he told of the horror of the scene that confronted him. It said: "I witnessed this collision. I saw my wife fade away in front of my eyes.

"My 12-year-old son was in the front seat of the vehicle. He appeared to have been knocked unconscious. I believe he didn't see his mother die. However, he regained consciousness at the scene and would have seen his mother in this terrible condition."

Mr Stagg added: "I feel I have lost half of myself. We shared everything."

Andrews-Faulkner, who has been a policeman for 22 years, denied causing death by dangerous driving.

In the witness box, the constable told the court he could not remember the moments before the crash.

Christopher Donnellan, prosecuting, said: "The traffic lights in the direction he was travelling were red and they were red as he went through them. It was with total disregard for the safety of other vehicles on the road and contradictory to his training and to common sense."

From June 1 to November 30 last year speed cameras in Sussex were activated 469 times by police vehicles which had blue lights activated - about 23 times a week.

Of those offences 50 notices of intended prosecution had been sent to drivers of police vehicles, by the end of the year.

After the verdict, Mr Stagg called for police forces and the Home Office to take urgent and effective measures to reduce what he said was "the appalling frequency" of the number of police vehicles involved in collisions with cars.

He said in a statement: "Our fervent wish is that Karen's tragic and untimely death... is not totally in vain."

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said the Sussex force would now consider whether the officer should face disciplinary action.