A drink driver was today starting six years behind bars after killing a Westcliff man as he drove on the wrong side of a dual-carriageway.

Gary Drain, 37, committed a "horrific and most wicked" offence in killing 55-year-old Anthony Nisbet on August 14 2004, Judge Daniel Worsley told Basildon Crown Court.

The victim's distraught brother, wife and two children sat in the public gallery and held hands throughout the hearing.

The court heard that on August 13, Drain, who has no driving licence or insurance, left work in London and took a train to Redbridge Station, where he picked up his wife's car and drove it to a nearby pub.

There he met with friends, bought two wraps of cocaine for £80, and spent more than five hours drinking.

At around closing time, the scaffolder claimed not to recall the next hour and forty-five minutes, during which the accident occurred.

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