A DRIVER jailed for six years for killing Newport taxi driver Michael Tunley in an horrific car crash last July has won his appeal to have his sentence reduced.

Kyle Andrew Wisdom, aged 21, from Wye Crescent, Bettws, Newport, had his sentence cut from six years to five at the Criminal Court of Appeal in London.

Wisdom - who admitted charges of causing Mr Tunley's death by dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and using threatening words and behaviour - was sentenced to six years in a young offenders' institution by Newport crown court last August.

He was driving a stolen Volkswagen Golf GTi around Newport during the early hours of July 8 when it crashed in to Mr Tunley's taxi, fatally injuring him.

At the Appeal Court this week, Mr Justice Pitchers, sitting with Lord Justice Waller and Judge Peter Crawford, QC, acknowledged Mr Tunley's family could well feel that no sentence could be long enough to accurately reflect their loss.

But he concluded the sentence imposed on Wisdom did not properly reflect the discount for his guilty plea, and reduced the sentence.

Newport court had heard Wisdom was driving at speeds of up to 100mph and at one point accelerated past a police van which tried to stop him. He was also seen driving on the wrong side of the road.

At a blind bend on Church Road his vehicle hit Mr Tunley's Ford Orion head-on. The 58-year-old, from Caroline Street, Newport, died hours later at the Royal Gwent Hospital, leaving a devastated wife, Eileen, three children, Christopher, Emma and Matthew, and ten grandchildren.

His family declined to comment on the appeal court ruling. But one driver from Newport's Dragon Taxis, who did not wish to be named said: "I think the court's decision is absolutely disgusting.

"Six years in the first place wasn't long enough, He was driving on the wrong side of the road, the police were chasing him and he was driving like a lunatic. The justice system just makes a mockery of it all".