A Sandhurst Army instructor who killed a policeman by causing a high-speed crash as he was being driven to a police station has been jailed for five-and-a-half years.
Drink-fuelled Staff Sergeant Steven Graham (39) yanked on the handbrake of the patrol car, causing it to overturn, after he was arrested for a breach of the peace near Hexham, Northumberland, in April this year.
Popular beat bobby Pc Joe Carroll, who was driving, was fatally injured. Graham admitted his manslaughter at an earlier hearing in June.
The court heard that Graham told police he had drunk up to 16 pints of beer and a bottle of wine before the crash, putting him more than three times the legal drink- drive limit.
He was visiting his girl-friend of three years, Alexia George, in West Woodburn, and the couple, who met while Graham was training at Otterburn, Northumberland, had rowed after visiting her local pub.
Pc Carroll and his colleague, Inspector Brian English, attended her house, and on the way Pc Carroll told his boss he had previously attended a similar incident involving the couple in January.
Miss George wanted Graham out of the house and, because he had nowhere else to go, they arrested him to prevent a further breach of the peace.
But Graham, who was "calm and chatty", was told he would not face charges and the officers did not handcuff him.
He was alone in the back of the patrol car, sitting behind Insp English, but became agitated when he realised he was being taken 35 miles to Newcastle, and not a shorter trip to Hexham, because there were no overnight cells available.
The patrol car was heading along the A69 at around 70mph when Graham had his "moment of madness", the court heard.
Graham was in the Army for 22 years and had served in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, as well as the Gulf.
He later became a signals instructor at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, Surrey.
His arrest came a day after Prince Harry was commissioned. The Ministry of Defence said the defendant was not an instructor for either the Prince or his brother, William.
Graham began to sober up at North Tyneside Hospital, when the enormity of what he had done began to sink in, the court heard.
Following the crash, Pc Carroll had been taken to Newcastle General Hospital where attempts to resuscitate him were in vain. He had suffered a severe head injury when the car overturned.
Mrs Carroll's wife Caroline, a 46-year-old teacher in Gos-forth, Newcastle, did not comment after sentencing.
After he was sentenced, Graham said the death could have been avoided if he had been taken to Hexham, and not to Newcastle.
