A MOTORIST who caused the death of a pensioner after forcing a bus to make an emergency stop has been sent to a young offenders' institution for four and a half years.

John Foran, 19, was told by Judge David Wynn Morgan: "If you had not driven the way you did that lady would not have been killed."

Foran, of Old Barn Estate, Newport, had been found guilty at an earlier hearing of causing the death of Margaret Lewis, 75, by dangerous driving.

He admitted a charge of escaping from custody after being arrested in Cardiff Road, Newport, two days after the incident, and was sentenced to one month's imprisonment to run concurrently.

Prosecutor Stephen Jeary said that on May 25, Foran drove a Vauxhall Calibra from Stow Park Circle into Risca Road without stopping. The car had bald tyres and a faulty handbrake.

Philip Newman, who was driving the Glyn Williams bus, was forced to make an emergency stop to avoid a collision.

Mrs Lewis, a retired teacher, had been on a trip to a garden centre in Hereford with her husband, to whom she had been married for 52 years. She was about to get off, but was thrown forward and died of neck injuries.

Foran denied the charge and said that at the junction there was traffic building up to his left and he believed the driver would have stopped before the yellow junction.

The judge told Cardiff crown court: "You have never had any proper driving instruction and you are not insured. You were carrying three passengers, one, your pregnant girlfriend.

"What happened was you didn't bring the car to a halt at the junction. You drove into the path of the approaching bus and the driver was obliged to perform an emergency stop."