A CONVICTED drink driver was being blamed last night for killing seven people, including himself, when he crashed head-on into an oncoming car while trying to overtake on a country road.

Those killed in the car struck by Jason Brain, 35, included two grandparents on their way home from bingo and their daughter. Their two young grandchildren were critically injured.

All four of those in Brain’s car, including his 15-year-old daughter, were killed.

The crash was described by Gloucestershire police as the worst in living memory in their county.

The two children, aged 9 and 10, were the only survivors of the crash.

It emerged that Brain had fled the scene of a crash on the same stretch of the A429 between Moreton-in-Marsh and Stow-on-the-Wold eight years ago.

On that occasion, he was found to be twice the drink-drive limit and was banned for five years. He was also convicted of driving with no insurance and without due care and attention.

Inspector Olly Lamb of Gloucestershire police said: “We have never had so many people killed in one road crash before,” he said.

The accident happened on Friday night when the grey Peugeot 306 driven by Brain was travelling towards Moreton-in-Marsh and collided head-on with a green Volkswagen Passat heading in the opposite direction.

Police believe the Peugeot, was overtaking a red Kia at the time. Two women in the Kia were unharmed.

Brain, his daughter Natasha Didcote, 15, and passengers Ryan Bott, 20, and Michola Jones, 31, were declared dead at the scene.

Yesterday, Natasha’s mother Lorna Didcote blamed her former boyfriend for the crash.

She said: “He’s been done for loads of driving offences.

“He shouldn’t have even been on the road.

“He’d been seen driving on the same road on the morning of the crash like an idiot.”

John Kirby, 53, the driver of the Passat, was pronounced dead at the scene. His wife Margaret, 61, who was in the front passenger seat, died in hospital in the early hours of yesterday.

A friend of the couple described them as “true pillars of the community”: adding: “It seems so cruel that so many lives could be wiped out in just a split second.”

Their daughter Julie, 34, who was also in the back of the Passat died at 8.30pm yesterday while being treated for serious chest injuries at Gloucestershire Royal hospital. She was aunt to the Kirbys’ grandchildren Sophie Stone, 9, and Adam, 10, who were in the back seats with her.

Sophie is being treated for abdominal injuries at the Bristol Royal hospital for children and Adam is being treated at the nearby Frenchay hospital for serious head injuries.

The children’s mother Tina Stone, 36, a former dinner lady, and father Nick are being comforted by relatives and police liaison officers.

Neighbours described Brain, meanwhile, as a “real boy racer.” Brain was not jailed for the 2001 motoring offence, although it was his third in 10 years.

At a court hearing in January 2001 he was given two years probation, a five-year driving ban and ordered to pay £55 costs.

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