FORMER Minehead police inspector Keith Bridges will not spend Christmas behind bars after escaping an immediate jail sentence for his part in a car crash which killed four people - including his wife and stepdaughter.

Bridges, the driver of the overloaded vehicle who was drunk and travelling too fast, was given a two-year suspended prison sentence, banned from driving for two years and fined just £180 by a French court for manslaughter, drink-driving and speeding offences.

The 52-year-old, whose automatic 4x4 Cherokee jeep crashed with a total of eight people inside, appeared before a panel of judges at the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Bergerac on Tuesday.

He was said to have shown no emotion as the sentence was handed down.

The horrific accident in June 2006 just 100 metres or so from the Bridges' family home in Berbiguieres in the Dordogne region claimed the lives of Julie-Ann Bridges, her ten-year-old daughter Bethany Lowe, friend Andrew Dyer and his daughter Gabriella, also ten.

Mr Dyer's parents Noel and Mary, who live in Bridgwater, slammed the punishment given to Bridges and said they were very upset by its leniency.

"I wanted justice but this is not justice,"said Mr Dyer. "I thought the British justice system was bad enough but this is ten times worse.

"I don't know what the French court was thinking - it's beyond comprehension."

Mrs Dyer added: "I think it's disgusting. We both thought he deserved a lot more than that.

"Four lives were lost for no reason. He shouldn't have driven that car and as a police officer, he should have been more responsible - I can't get over that."

Andrew Dyer's wife Tracey was seriously injured in the crash but survived along with the couple's other children, Charlotte, then seven, and Keiran, four.

But she has always supported Bridges - who escaped with a broken leg and a hand injury - and after the sentencing said he would live with what had happened for the rest of his life.

"No prison sentence would have made any difference," she said.

She told a jury at an inquest in Taunton in November that she never questioned his ability to drive on the night of the accident and still did not question it.

However, the jury concluded that the accident would not have happened if Bridges had not attempted to negotiate a bend at excessive speed with his judgement "moderately" impaired by alcohol.

The inquest heard that only five of the eight people in the vehicle were wearing seatbelts - the two ten-year-olds were in the boot and Keiran was on Mrs Bridges' lap.

Bridges was also three times over the French drink-drive limit and almost twice the legal limit allowed in Britain.

He was said to have been travelling at around 62mph - some 20 miles above what was considered a safe speed.

Bridges had moved to France with his wife and stepdaughter ten months before the accident after retiring from a 30-year career with the Avon and Somerset force.

Long-standing friends the Dyers had been holidaying with them and both families had spent the evening of the crash at the home of Tony and Jenny Fuller, neighbours in the tight knit English community in the Berbiguieres area.

Mr Fuller had made cocktails using a bottle of spirits and between three and four bottles of wine had also been drunk, while his son and Mrs Bridges had shared 22 small bottles of French beer.

The hearing also heard that when the question of who should drive home arose, Bethany and Gabriella offered, saying one would steer and the other would press the pedals.

At the sentencing hearing in France this week, prosecutor Jean-Luc Gadaud said of Bridges: "This was the act of a man who shouldn't have done what he did."

At a short trial three weeks ago, when Bridges first appeared to face the charges against him, he said his thoughts were always with his family and friends who were killed when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed into trees.

He told the court that in hindsight there may have been something he could have done to avoid the crash.

"Every day I try and find out what happened on that night," he said.

"My thoughts are always with my family and friends who have had to suffer as a result of mthis."

Bridges maintained that a defect in the design of the jeep's overdrive system caused the excessive speed of the vehicle.

But investigations by French police failed to find any mechanical faults, while a review of the evidence carried out for West Somerset coroner Michael Rose by a senior collision investigator with the Avon and Somerset police concluded the accident was caused by driver error.

l Bridges was the Minehead-based sector inspector for the last four years of his service but had also been a sergeant in Williton from 1986 to 1988.

He had lived with Julie-Ann, his second wife, and Bethany in Bicknoller and Williton, and Bethany was a former pupil at St Peter's First School and Buckland School in Watchet.