DRINK-DRIVER Ghazanfar Mahmood has been jailed for four years for killing student Alex Shoulder when he lost control of his car and mounted a pavement.

One of Mahmood's friends had warned him not to drive after smelling alcohol on his breath an hour before the accident.

Mahmood, 21, of Roberts Road, High Wycombe, was sentenced at Reading Crown Court on Friday, after admitting causing death by dangerous driving at an earlier hearing. The maximum possible sentence was ten years.

Alex, a student at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, was killed in Totteridge Road, High Wycombe, as he walked home on January 18.

Alex's father, Tony, said of Mahmood's sentence: "He has three or four years. I have life. Seeing Mahmood in court was difficult, but Alex wasn't a violent person and would not have sought revenge. All I asked for was justice."

The 19-year-old video and media student was knocked into the air and against a van when Mahmood lost control of his father's Vauxhall Cavalier. Paramedics resuscitated Alex but he died the next day at Wycombe Hospital surrounded by family.

Judge Mary Jane Mowat, sentencing, told Mahmood, who was twice the drink drive limit at the time of the crash: "You are a decent and respectable young man who, as the result of one day of folly, not only killed someone but is now going to prison.

"A family has lost someone they love and no sentence can ever compensate for that loss."

Andrew Quhart, prosecuting, told the court how one of Mahmood's friends said he should not drive after smelling alcohol on his breath but Mahmood insisted he was all right.

Mr Quhart continued: "Less than an hour later the defendant was driving along Totteridge Road and was faced with a gradual left hand bend. It was a damp and icy surface and it appears he was going too fast and skidded off the road. He mounted the pavement and struck Alex."

The court heard that Mahmood later told police he had made a misjudgment going around the bend.

Paul Wakerley, defending, said Mahmood came from a religious family who did not know he had started to drink. He said Mahmood had gone to the park for a drink with his friends with no intention of driving. Mr Wakerley added: "Through me, he [Mahmood] wishes to express the remorse he feels and recognises the emotional impact on the relatives of the young victim. He is truly sorry."

Tony Shoulder, a self-employed plumber who brought up his two sons single-handedly, said: "I always believed I could protect him [Alex]. I'm his father. But I was wrong. He was such a caring person, so generous and thoughtful. And he had such a good sense of humour. That's what I'll remember."