A DRIVER who was showing off when he crashed his car and badly injured two sisters was yesterday jailed for a year.

David Andrew Mitchell was told by Judge George Moorhouse: "My over-riding duty is towards the public, and warnings must go out to others that people who behave in this way must lose their liberty."

Former RAF serviceman Mitchell, 20, was also banned from the roads for two years and ordered to take an extended driving test before he can be allowed back behind the wheel.

His sentence was last night welcomed by the family of the teenage sisters, who told The Northern Echo: "He is lucky he was not facing a charge of causing death by dangerous driving."

Lindsay Carlton, 15, suffered serious head injuries and was unconscious for ten days after the accident in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, last summer.

Doctors told Lindsay's parents, Michael and Linda, that she had a 50/50 chance of survival. She was off school for months and still suffers from memory and recognition problems.

Sister Ashley, 18, who had just taken her A-level art exam, suffered a fractured spine and had to have a metal plate inserted.

Mitchell and two other passengers, aged 14 and 15, also needed hospital treatment after he crashed his Vauxhall Astra into a tree on the Durham Way South industrial estate on July 29.

Teesside Crown Court heard how Mitchell, of Greenlea Garth, Newton Aycliffe, who pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, was speeding, swerving and doing handbrake turns before the crash.

John Gillette, prosecuting, told the court that he asked the girls: "Are you scared?".

Aisha Wadoodi, for Mitchell, said he accepted he was not driving properly and was sorry for the trauma he had caused the victims and his family.

She said Mitchell pleaded guilty to prevent further distress to the girls and their families by having to give evidence at court, and urged Judge Moorhouse not to jail him because it would be devastating.

The judge told him: "Fortunately for you, no one died as a result of your driving. Sadly, however, two of the girls suffered terrible injuries.

"They were so traumatised and affected by this accident that their father had to take five weeks off work to look after them."

Mr Carlton said afterwards: "I am just relieved that he is not able to be driving about now."