A man who killed his best friend in a drunken road smash failed in an Appeal Court bid to cut his six-year jail term yesterday.

Graham Michael Surtees, 41, of Ridley Court, Stockton, was jailed, and banned from the roads for life, at Teesside Crown Court, in April this year, after he admitted causing death by dangerous driving.

Judge David Clarke told London's Criminal Appeal Court that Surtees' remorse over his best friend's death had had a "substantial effect" on his life, but he refused the appeal.

The court heard Surtees met his friend Antony Huggins, who was a married man with teenage children, at a local pub in July 1999 for an afternoon session, during which Surtees drank six to eight pints.

At 4.30pm they went home to eat and sleep, and Surtees, after an argument with his girlfriend, took the car to the pub where he and Mr Huggins met and both had another pint.

The judge told the court that Surtees, who had only a provisional driving licence, had then driven Mr Huggins and another man to a pub in a village two miles away.

During this journey, the third man in the car reported that Surtees reached speeds of up to 115mph, boasting about the capabilities of his Vauxhall Omega car, said the judge

After drinking another pint in that pub they set off back to Stockton, where Mr Huggins was to meet his wife.

The witness said Surtees was "showing off, rocking the steering wheel so that it swerved from side to side".

During this journey, Surtees crashed into a central reservation while negotiating a series of sharp turns on a dual carriageway, killing Mr Huggins who was the front seat passenger.

A blood sample taken at 2.25 am showed Surtees to be under the legal limit for driving, but scientific opinion suggested that he would have been over the limit at the time of the crash, said the judge.