A VAN driver is facing jail after being found guilty of badly injuring a pedestrian as he raced a sports car through village streets.

Roy Morrison's Ford Transit hit the woman as she crossed a road in Wheatley Hill, County Durham, leaving her with a shattered knee.

It can now be revealed that the other driver - who admitted racing - was responsible for a triple death crash just a fortnight later.

Jak Parker, 23, pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving when the pedestrian was hurt in the early hours of June 8.

On June 23, he was responsible for a horrific head-on crash which claimed the lives of three women just miles away in Shotton Colliery.

Morrison, of Drum Lane Caravan Site, Chester-le-Street, and Parker, of Crimdon Terrace, Blackhall Colliery, will be sentenced together.

The Northern Echo can now disclose that danger-driver Parker was behind the wheel of a high-performance MG ZR car in both accidents last year.

In the second incident in Shotton Colliery, a Fiat 500 travelling in the same direction collided with a Citroen Xsara coming the other way.

It was Parker’s manner of driving which caused the crash. He has pleaded guilty to three charges of causing death by dangerous driving.

Anne Peachey died on arrival at hospital; Rebecca Learoyd was confirmed dead at the scene; and Megan Robinson died in hospital two days later.

Mrs Peachey, 60, was at the wheel of the Citroen, and Miss Learoyd, 18, was driving the Fiat, in which Miss Robinson, 19, was a passenger.

Two weeks earlier, Parker and Morrison were racing through Thornley and Wheatley Hill when the van struck the woman pedestrian, a jury decided.

Morrison had denied causing serious injury by dangerous driving, but was convicted at the end of a three-day Teesside Crown Court trial.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton adjourned the case for a pre-sentence report, and granted Morrison bail until his return at the end of the month.

The judge told him: "That should not lead you to the conclusion that anything other than a custodial sentence will follow in this case."

At Parker's last hearing in June, he was told by Judge Peter Armstrong: "You are facing a substantial custodial sentence."

The teenagers killed in the Shotton Colliery crash where from Thornley and either studied or previously studied at East Durham College.

Mrs Peachey, of Sherburn Hill, near Durham, worked on the help desk at County Hall, and was a former chairwoman of Shadforth Parish Council.