A driver told a jury he took the blame for the death of a mother-of-two in a car crash.

Gregory Schalla, 45, said he had no memory of the fatal accident near Crawley but he took full responsibility.

Karen Powell, 32, of Newtown, Copthorne, was on a Saturday morning shopping trip when her Nissan Primera was in a head-on crash with Schalla's hired car.

Schalla lost control and swerved across the A2220 Copthorne Road moments before the crash in December 2004.

Mrs Powell, a sales and marketing administrator, died later from her injuries.

Schalla, who lives in Scotland, denies causing death by careless driving while unfit to drive through drink at a trial at Lewes Crown Court.

The married father-of-one struggled not to break down as he gave evidence in the witness box.

Schalla, who was seriously injured in the crash and spent weeks recovering in hospital, told the court he was haunted by the accident and had thought about it every day since.

He said: "This whole thing haunts me. It is an absolute horrible tragedy."

He said: "I think about it. I cannot control when it comes up. It is like a TV is on and a movie won't go forwards or backwards. It is just stuck.

Schalla told the court he had drunk five or six pints of lager the night before the accident when he went to a Beautiful South concert in London. He remembered nothing about the crash but said he could not dispute the evidence that he caused the accident. He said: "It has been shown in the evidence it was my car that went over the centre line and I have to take full responsibility for that."

The court heard that a blood sample showed he still had alcohol in his blood. A back calculation estimated he was over the legal drink drive limit at the time of the crash but there was no certain evidence.

The trial continues.