STEPHEN Lees isn’t an habitual criminal, but today he begins a five-year jail sentence for killing. His is a salutory lesson; a there but by the grace of God story, because Lees has been convicted of death by careless driving while unfit through drink.

It’s his own fault, of course. What makes someone who has been drinking for six hours think he could be in a fit state to drive home? The more so because Lees is an HGV driver and the very least that could happen if he was caught would be the end of his career.

But the very worst happened. After refusing offers of a lift home, Lees instead chose to drive his new car home. At the same time 60-year-old Wendy Nelson was driving back from her sister’s house. Probably the last thing she saw was Lees’ headlights.

Since the drink drive campaign began 50 years ago, deaths from drinking and driving have fallen by 85 per cent, but the message remains the same; one death is still too many.

Stephen Lees has learned that the hard way by destroying one person’s life and ruining his own. The only good thing that could possibly come out of all this is if others who have got away with it in the past finally start to think before taking the wheel after a few drinks.