A DRINK-DRIVER was today starting a jail sentence for killing his best friend in a crash on a North Yorkshire road as he tried to escape from police patrols.

All three young men inside Benjamin Kaye's company car were catapulted out when he crashed it while doing at least 70 mph on the A162 near Tadcaster, York Crown Court heard.

Nicholas Barker, prosecuting, said that front seat passenger Mark Beal, 21, of Lumby, near South Milford, was thrown across the carriageway and died later in hospital.

The crash ended a police hunt, which began when a patrol car drew up alongside Kaye's car where it was parked in a field outside Selby and he sped off.

Suspicious, officers alerted other patrol cars, who spotted Kaye at various points as he drove slightly over the speed limit through Wistow and Cawood, and past Sherburn-in-Elmet, but were unable to get on his tail before the crash, at about 11pm on January 2, 2003.

Kaye, 23, who then lived in Toulson, near Tadcaster, pleaded guilty to causing Mr Beal's death by careless driving while drink-driving and was jailed for three-and-a-half years.

He was also banned from driving for six years and ordered to take an extended driving test.

The court heard that he had been slightly over the drink-drive limit.

"You should not have been at the wheel," the Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman told him. "I observe that the others in the car knew full well that you should not have been at the wheel."

None of the three people in the car were wearing seat belts, and the judge said that Mr Beal might not have died if he had been.

For Kaye, Michael Harrison QC said he had been trying to get home without being stopped. Kaye was full of remorse because Mr Beal had been his "lifelong best friend" and the two families were very close.

"This is an unfortunate case of a decent young man who, in a moment of dreadful misjudgement, brought about a death," the barrister said. "He now has to bear that knowledge for the rest of his life."

Mr Barker said the three men had spent the evening drinking in the Red Lion, Hambleton, before getting pizzas and kebabs in Selby. They had parked in open country just outside the town to eat their takeaways when the police car pulled up to investigate lights which officers thought were suspicious.

Updated: 09:45 Saturday, November 06, 2004