A DRIVER, locked up for six years for killing Newport taxi driver Michael Tunley (pictured) in an horrific car crash last July, is to appeal against his sentence.

Kyle Andrew Wisdom was sentenced to six years in a young offenders' institution last August by a judge at Newport crown court.

Wisdom had pleaded guilty to causing Mr Tunley's death by dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and using threatening words or behaviour.

But yesterday at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Wisdom, of Wye Crescent, Bettws, was told by the Lord Justice Dyson he had grounds to appeal against the length of his sentence.

Wisdom had been driving a stolen Golf GTi around Newport during the early hours of July 8 when the tragedy occurred.

He later claimed he did not know the vehicle was stolen. Witnesses told police the 20-year-old had been driving at speeds of 100mph around the town, and at one point he accelerated past a police van which tried to stop him. It was as Wisdom went around a blind bend on Church Road just after midnight that his vehicle crashed into Mr Tunley's Ford Orion.

The 58-year-old, who lived in Caroline Street, died hours later at the Royal Gwent Hospital, leaving a devastated wife, Eileen, three children, Christopher, Emma and Matthew, and ten grandchildren.

The Tunley family had not known of yesterday's appeal. His widow was last night too upset to comment about the news.

But former colleagues said they were "disgusted" by the decision. Rafiq Tufail, manager of ABC taxis, said: "I used to work with Mike, and he was as good as gold. It is disgusting that he even got six years - is that all someone's life is worth? It just does not seem right."

Mr Tunley had worked as a taxi driver for 30 years, and was a devoted family man, as well as a keen golfer and Liverpool FC fan.

In a moving tribute, Mr Tunley's colleagues paid their respects when his funeral cortege passed through the Newport bus station taxi rank as it headed towards St Mary's Church on Stow Hill.

Speaking after the tragedy, Mrs Tunley told the Argus: "Things will never, ever be the same again."