Unborn grandchild of death-crash driver may have been the eighth victim of horror smash

A friend of Brain's daughter Natasha Didecote - who died alongside her father - said today that the 15-year-old had just found out she was pregnant.

Brain, a convicted drink-driver, had been reported to police for dangerous driving a week before.

The 35-year-old died with his three passengers, including his 15-year-old daughter, when he ploughed into an oncoming car as he overtook another vehicle.

Three of those in the car he hit died.

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Relatives of the dead said Brain was a notorious "boy racer".

The crash, on the A429 in Gloucestershire, was just a few miles from the spot where he fled a similar collision eight years ago.

On that occasion, Brain was banned from driving for five years after admitting drink-driving and other motoring offences.

Last night, Danny Didcote, 54, maternal grandfather of his teenage daughter Natasha, said Brain had been seen behaving dangerously on the road a week previously.

"Two people told police they saw him driving wildly on a motorbike, pulling wheelies and showing off," he said.

"If the police had followed it up properly then all this could have been prevented.

"I saw him the day before the crash and he was driving like a maniac. I was going to report him too but it is too late now.

"He gambled with all those people's lives, and now it's those innocent people and their families who suffer. We all have to live with what he's done and for us it's a life sentence."

Brain's ex-girlfriend Lorna Didcote, Natasha's mother, was waiting to learn if her teenage daughter was pregnant when she died.

She said: "He's been done for loads of driving offences. He shouldn't have even been on the road."

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Mr Didcote, Lorna's father, added: "There should be zero tolerance for people who have done this sort of thing before. The police and the courts have to start protecting the public."

The crash happened as John Kirby, 53, drove his wife, daughter and grandchildren back to their home in Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, at 9.20pm after bingo in Moreton-in-Marsh.

As Brain's Peugeot 306 overtook a Kia Sedona, it hit the Kirbys' Volkswagen Passat head-on.

Mr Kirby, a lorry driver, was pronounced dead at the scene.

His wife, Margaret, 61, a housekeeper and a volunteer for the Royal British Legion, died in hospital.

Their daughter Julie, 34, her nephew Adam Stone, ten, and niece Sophie, nine, were in the back of the car.

They were all freed from the wreckage but Julie died from chest injuries on Saturday, at the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.

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The children last night remained critically ill in hospital.

Adam, who received head injuries, had emergency surgery at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, on Saturday.

Friends said surgeons had operated to rebuild his face.

His sister is at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, with serious stomach injuries.

Brain, a father-of-four from Moreton-in-Marsh, and his passengers, were pronounced dead at the scene.

His daughter was six days away from her 16th birthday.

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His cousin Ryan Bott, 20, a window cleaner, died, along with family friend Michola Jones, 31, She had a nine-year-old daughter, Jade.

Mr Bott's mother Valerie Hornsby, 54, of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, said: "It's Jason's fault. He's done it before and he's done it again.

"Ryan should never have got in the car with him - it was a stupid, stupid mistake. He's just not safe."

Natasha's uncle, Bill Clayton-Ives, 42, said: "Brain was the kind of bloke who was asking to get killed every time he went out on the road - it's just a tragedy he had to take six other people with him."

Police were last night investigating claims that Brain could have been drinking before the crash.

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In August 2000, he hit another car head-on as he tried to overtake a lorry on the same stretch of road.

The other car contained a couple and their eight-month- old baby.

The father had to be cut free and needed hospital treatment.

Brain, then 28, fled but was traced by police.

A breath test showed he was double the legal alcohol limit.

He pleaded guilty to drink-driving, careless driving and failing to stop after an accident, and was given a five-year ban and two years on probation.

He was spared jail, although it was his third driving offence in ten years.

Gloucestershire Police said: "We take all reports of illegal motoring extremely seriously."