THE driver responsible for the death of six-year-old Leonie Shaw is today facing up to 14 years in prison.

Colin Meek will be sentenced at Teesside Crown Court for burglary, dangerous driving and driving while disqualified.

The 34-year-old, who has a string of previous convictions, admitted burgling Woolworths, in Barnard Castle, County Durham, but denied he was the getaway driver in the robbery.

A jury convicted him of the driving offences last month.

He now faces a maximum term of 14 years for burglary, two years for dangerous driving and six months for driving while disqualified.

The 34-year-old, formerly of Spennymoor, County Dur-ham, was jailed for four years after the car he was driving hit Leonie as she crossed a street in Bishop Auckland in April 2002.

He did not have a licence and was driving a car with seriously defective brakes.

Meek drove off after the incident and left Leonie dying in the street.

Meek, a drug addict, served only two years of his sentence before he was freed and again got behind the wheel of a car, despite being banned from driving for life.

Teesside Crown Court heard last month how Meek, who was high on heroin, had driven at 100mph through streets in south Durham as he tried to evade police after the burglary.

He drove on the wrong side of the road, was speeding and failed to stop for officers during the early-morning pursuit in May last year.

After he was found guilty, Leonie's mother, Michelle Aldworth, 36, told The Northern Echo Meek's actions could easily have killed another child.

She said: "He was not man enough to admit that he was driving this time. It is just as well it was the middle of the night and the roads were quiet. It could have been somebody else's bairn."

Judge Peter Fox, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, will sentence Meek today.

He is the same judge who was criticised by Leonie's family in September 2002 for sentencing Meek to only four years out of a maximum ten years for her death.

Judge Fox also sentenced Meek in 1999 to four-and-a-half years in jail for wounding a man in a knife attack. He served two-and-a-half years.