A FOOTBALL agent whose dangerous motorway driving killed one man and permanently paralysed another has been jailed for seven years.

Peter Morrison, 37, had been speeding and sending a string of phone WhatsApp messages minutes before losing control of his Mercedes ML 350 4x4 in "atrocious" weather conditions on the M6 near Tebay, Cumbria, on February 21, 2016.

Morrison's vehicle swerved "violently" off the southbound carriageway, across the hard shoulder and rebounded off a rock before ploughing into two highways workers who were stood watching the recovery of two previously-crashed vehicles.

Adam Gibb, a 51-year-old married dad from Penrith, was killed while his colleague, Paul Holroyd, of Kirkby Stephen, suffered life-changing injuries. Mr Holroyd, now aged 53, was left permanently paralysed from the chest down.

Morrison admitted careless driving, yet denied that dangerous driving caused Mr Gibb's death and Mr Holroyd's serious injuries. But he was convicted, unanimously, of both offences following a crown court trial.

Morrison, a married father-of-one and an ex-pro footballer who played for Bolton Wanderers and Scunthorpe United before his career was cut short by injury, was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court this afternoon (FRI).

In a letter to the court, Morrison, of The Warke, Worsley, near Manchester, stated: "I will punish myself, mentally, for this until the day I die."

Mr Justice William Davis told him the jail term he was imposing "does not begin to reflect the true value of the lives you have wrecked".

Morrison was also handed an eight-year driving ban.