A LORRY driver has been arrested following a crash which left three members of the same family dead, including a one-year-old girl.

Police said all three who died in the collision on the B1404 between Houghton-le-Spring and Seaham were in the same vehicle.

They were travelling in a Renault Megane Scenic which was in collision with a Volvo truck near Sharpley Golf Club.

A force spokesman said those who died were a 75-year-old man, believed to have been the driver, an 18-year-old woman and the baby girl.

The woman and the girl were in the back of the car.

A 74-year-old woman, who was the front seat passenger, was airlifted to James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough with serious injuries.

The family is from the Houghton-le-Spring area.

The spokesman said the lorry driver, a 42-year-old man from Hetton-le-Hole, was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. He suffered whiplash injuries in the crash and is in police custody.

The accident happened at around 12.20pm, officers said.

The lorry crashed through hedges and trees and ended up 250 metres away in the middle of a fairway, the golf course owner said.

Simon Weightman, a farmer who diversified to build Sharpley Golf Club, said: "I suddenly saw a lorry in the middle of the fairway. Then I saw a person get out and collapse on the ground.

"Some golfers playing that hole turned out to be detectives and they were very quickly on the scene of the crash.

"The bang was so loud I thought it must have been a head-on collision. The lorry's fuel tank was ruptured as if the lorry had gone over the car. I got a quick glimpse of the car, but it was very traumatic to see it. Golfers who saw it came off the course. They could clearly see it was awful."

Mr Weightman said the crash happened on a 60mph stretch of road, close to the bottom end of the course.

The lorry ended up on the 16th fairway, 250m from the impact.

He said: "After the collision it had gone through the old hedge, through the new one, up an embankment, over the top of some five-year-old trees and into the fairway.

"Fuel was running out of its tank.

"The front of the lorry was damaged and the tyres were ruptured.

"The driver of the lorry only seemed to get 30 yards from the vehicle and then collapsed."

Mr Weightman said there had been several bad crashes on the stretch of road since he moved to the farm in 1989 and it was the third time the air ambulance has attended.

"There has been a lot of vehicles go through the hedge and that has generally been associated with speed.

"We really should have a 50mph limit here," he said.

Tonight the remains of a light-green people carrier were sitting on a recovery truck parked by the crash scene.

Workers with a separate recovery vehicle gathered around the large hole in the hedge to the side of the country lane which heads uphill from Seaham towards Houghton.

Police reopened the road shortly before 6pm.