A SOLDIER’S six-year jail sentence for causing the deaths of two teenage members of the Aldershot, Farnham and District Athletic Club has been criticised as too lenient.

Stacey Burrows, 16, and Lucy Pygott, 17, were on a training run on November 8, 2016, when they were hit by a Ford Focus driven by Michael Casey, 24, near the Army garrison in Queens Avenue, Aldershot. They both died at the scene.

Casey, originally of St Paul’s Road, Tottenham, pleaded guilty to two counts of causing death by dangerous driving at Winchester Crown Court on Thursday last week.

The court heard Casey was over the legal drink driving limit - having admitted in a police interview to drinking three or four pints of lager as well as a two-pint pitcher of a cocktail prior to the crash - and was driving at 40 mph in a 30 mph zone when he went through a red light at a pedestrian crossing and hit the two girls.

He claimed he was distracted after a colleague had been sick in his car, and looked up to see the red light and “felt” a collision before seeing Stacey and Lucy in the road.

It came just days after Lucy, who was from Hartley Wintney, was highly commended at the Farnham Sports Awards having won a 3,000m bronze medal at the European Youth Championships last July.

Stacey, from Farnborough, was also the reigning Hampshire under-17 3,000m champion and both young athletes were honoured posthumously at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards last December.

Casey was sentenced last Thursday to serve six years for each count of causing death by dangerous driving, to run concurrently, and was also disqualified from driving for 10 years.

However, after it was revealed in court that he could be released on licence after three years, Stacey’s mother shouted from the public gallery: “I do not get my daughter back in three years, do I?”

In an impact statement read to the court, Stacey’s father, Lee, added he had just dropped his daughter off at the athletics club when he heard the crash.

“I heard a loud bang and screams and ran down the steps frantically looking for Stacey only to be stopped by one of the parents who told me, ‘it’s Stacey’,” he said.

“Then I saw Stacey lying in the road with people trying to help her. I felt I died with Stacey that night, I cried with fear and I froze with shock.”

Describing seeing her daughter’s bloodied body after the crash, Lucy’s mother, Lisa Pygott, told the court: “That image traumatises me, it will stay with me until I die. No parent should ever have to see their innocent blameless child pointlessly killed.

“Mr Casey has broken our precious family, we are lost without Lucy. The British army trains soldiers to kill - Mr Casey killed with his loaded weapon of a hot-hatch car.”

Casey’s sentence has also provoked a negative response online, with many airing their disgust on the Herald’s Facebook page.

“Only six years!!! That is not justice! He will still have his whole life ahead of him unlike those two poor young girls and their families!”, said Heidi Richardson.

Another Facebook user Jessica Alice Ray said: “Isn’t right!!! He will only do half of that!! Makes me sick, them poor girls. Taken so young.”

Dennis Cartwright added: “Distracted by vomit? Was he also distracted by the signs warning him of traffic lights? Of people on pavements, of on coming cars? This wasn’t a split second not looking scenario, this was a clear case of very bad driving while over the drink drive limit.”

After the sentencing Sgt Mark Furse, senior investigating officer, said: “This is a truly tragic case which has had a huge impact on everyone who knew Stacey and Lucy.

“Both had such promising futures ahead of them but those were so cruelly ripped away from them because of Mr Casey’s stupidity and recklessness behind the wheel.

“Now the devastated families of Stacey and Lucy are forced to live on without them, knowing that their heartbreak could have so easily been avoided if Mr Casey had made the right decision and not driven that evening.

“As the court heard, not only was Mr Casey over the drink-drive limit, witnesses from the scene told our officers that he was travelling significantly above the 30mph speed limit and he himself admitted he was distracted.

“Let this be a warning to anyone who thinks that these are risks worth taking and that this will never happen to them.”

An Army spokesman said following the hearing: “All those who fall short of the Army’s high standards can expect to be dealt with administratively up to and including dismissal from the service.”