A DANGEROUS driver who killed a mum-of-eight and a young man in a horror crash on the M25 has been jailed for 18 years.

Barancan Nurcin’s white Citroen Dispatch van crashed into three other vehicles on the motorway on Sunday, February 4: a silver DFSK 580 Glory, a silver Skoda Superb and a black Peugeot 5008.

Two people were killed in the smash, which occurred between junctions 22 (London Colney) and 21A (North Orbital Road/St Albans).

They were Zoe Hawes, 39, from Canvey, and Fahad Dek, 23, from Enfield.

Mrs Hawes, a mother to eight children and step-children, was travelling with her husband Wayne to go on holiday for her 40th birthday when the tragic incident occurred.

Mr Dek was a passenger in Nurcin’s van.

Nurcin last appeared in court on March 26 where he admitted two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and four counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

He also admitted he had been driving without a licence or insurance.

The 22-year-old appeared at St Albans Crown Court today where he has been sentenced to 18 years for each of the two counts of causing death by dangerous driving, which will run concurrently. 

Smaller sentences for other offences will also run concurrently. 

Mrs Hawes's daughter wrote in a statement of the moment she learned her mother had died: "I remember screaming and falling to the floor."

"You have no idea how much pain you have caused me, my family and everyone who I love," she wrote to Nurcin.

"I will never forgive you for what you have done to our family. You can never do long enough in prison."

Wayne Hawes described, in a video statement recorded from his hospital bed, waking up with injuries to his neck, hip, ribs and legs. He suffered a bleed on the brain has also been left with no vision in one eye.

He was in an induced coma for weeks and was lucky to survive, the prosecutor said.

His sister described how, when he regained conscious, he wrote a Z on a pad, asking after the "love of his life".

"All I could do was shake my head," she wrote in a statement. "He couldn't make a sound."

Tears began to roll down Mr Hawes's face, she said, adding: "I knew I had broken his heart."

Nurcin, in a black shirt and black trousers, showed no emotion as his sentenced was given. 

He will serve “up to two-thirds” of his sentence in custody and the rest on licence. 

Mitigating, defence barrister Edward McKiernan said if his client was a "cowardly, conniving person", he would have dragged the case out rather than pleading guilty. He told the court Nurcin is a young and inexperienced man who himself suffered a potentially life-changing injury to his pelvis.