AS a police family liaison officer, he has seen at first hand the pain and misery suffered by parents when their children die young in road accidents.

Now PC Paul Beckwith has thrown his support behind The Press Live Now, Drive Later campaign, which aims to cut the number of tragedies caused by joy-riding.

We intend to produce a video to show to teenagers across the York area to deter them from joy-riding.

The campaign was launched after an inquest heard how 15-year-old Joel Corner, his friend, Daniel Wright, also 15, and 57-year-old van driver Peter Alexander died after Joel took his father's car and crashed at high speed into Mr Alexander's van.

Joel and Daniel's parents have backed the campaign, as has Peter's son, Stuart.

PC Beckwith, who also works as a neighbourhood police officer in Holgate, York, said it was tough for people to lose someone younger than them, such as parents losing their child.

But it was even harder when their children died in a crash involving joy-riding, and there would have to be either an inquest or a court case.

"Usually, there can be closure after a death when the funeral takes place," he said. "But in these cases, there is a delay of four to six weeks before the body can be released by the coroner to allow the funeral to happen, and then another delay of up to 18 months or two years until either a court case or an inquest can be held."

He said one of the family liaison officer's roles was to help arrange for identification of the body.

In many cases, parents wanted to take responsibility for identifying their child's body, even though this was a traumatic process.

But sometimes the facial injuries after a road accident were so severe this was impossible and police had to use fingerprints on a CD or hair from a brush to carry out the identification.

PC Beckwith said he believed a hard-hitting video of the kind being planned by The Press could be effective in discouraging teenagers from getting involved in taking and driving away cars.