A MAN whose reckless actions killed a young woman as he evaded police by driving a stolen van down the wrong carriageway on the A13 and crashed into an oncoming taxi has been jailed for 14 years. 

Ashley Loveday, 39, was driving the vehicle on the A13 in east London last November, when he crashed head on into a Toyota Prius Uber taxi.

Taxi passenger Grace Payne, 21 was killed and the driver, Sundar Ali, 59, was seriously injured.

Loveday, who had stolen the van days earlier, was being followed by Essex Police who were driving on the right side of the carriageway. He had failed to stop when requested by officers on the A13. After the crash the A13 was closed in both directions for many hours.

Sentencing Loveday at the Old Bailey Judge Mark Dennis KC told him: "Your actions on that fateful night in November last year involved driving at the highest level of dangerousness to others in a prolonged and determined course of dangerous driving, leaving in its wake two victims.

"It has caused indescribable anguish for many and irreparable harm."

Ms Payne's parents paid tribute to their daughter in a victim impact statement read out by the prosecutor.

They said: "Grace's death has left us as a family devastated."

"We are struggling to come to terms with the fact that our daughter will never be coming home," they added.

The court heard Loveday has been before the courts since he was 16, having been convicted of 81 offences on 54 occasions between 2000 and 2022.