A driver who sped through two red lights before killing a woman with his car and leaving another in a “vegetative state” has been jailed.

Luis Ramos, 29, ploughed into 42 year-old Corina Cretu and 29-year-old Loredana Toma, in Lea Bridge Road, Leyton, on January 15.

Ms Cretu died in hospital four days later, while Ms Toma is now dealing with life-changing injuries that left her “like a dead person”, in the words of her brother.

Ramos, of Erskin Road, Walthamstow, was jailed for five years and four months at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday (December 1) after admitting causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving.

The court heard how Ramos was driving his girlfriend's red Range Rover Evoque when he hit Ms Cretu and Ms Toma.

He called emergency services before fleeing the scene, but was identified by minicab drivers who stopped to help.

Police traced the car to an address in Walthamstow, where he was arrested several hours later.

Tearful members of the victims' and Ramos's family watched from the public gallery as Judge Nigel Peters told the driver: “These are the worst cases that come before the crown court.

“I'm dealing here with the most tragic cases of two people crossing the road, knocked down by you - one killed one described by the doctors in a persistent vegetative state.

“It's clear to me that you drove at speed over considerable distance and on two occasions went through the red traffic light and did not break.

“On one occasion some four metres prior to the tragedy it was too late for you to break when two victims crossed the road and you failed to see the red light.”

The court heard experts estimated Ramos was travelling at between 49 and 56mph in the 15 metres before he hit the two women and may have been travelling even faster in the lead-up to the crash.

Ms Toma's brother, Bogden, said in a statement read to the court: “I don't think words are enough to describe what happened.

“She has not been speaking, eating or moving. She suffers going through operation after operation and only cries when someone touches her.

“Even more painful is that no-one knows why she cries, not even her doctors. She is a dead person who is still suffering greatly at the age of 28 years old.”

Ramos also admitted causing death by dangerous driving while uninsured and failing to stop at the scene of an accident. And was ordered to pay a statutory surcharge of £170.