A Romanian bodybuilder was today jailed for eight years for killing a young father in a hit-and-run crash in his £120,000 Bentley.

George Claudiu Albu, 31, admitted mowing down Christopher Jones while driving "dangerously" down a Notting Hill road in August last year.

A hearing at Southwark Crown Court was told Albu was driving 60 or 70mph down Pembridge Villas striking Mr Jones, 23, whose VW tipper truck had broken down on the road. The collision occurred after a "prolonged, sustained period of deliberate bad driving" the hearing was told.

Prosecuting lawyer John Smith told the court the defendant and his passenger, who were captured on CCTV earlier that night leaving a restaurant in Notting Hill after downing two shots of tequila each, fled the scene after the crash.

He said Mr Jones, who worked for grounds maintenance company Quadron, was hit as he tried to direct traffic around his broken-down van on 6 August around midnight.

The court heard that Mr Jones, who had been wearing a high-vis jacket, had come to a stop under a street light.

"Mr Jones was struck and suffered multiple and horrific injuries including the loss of a leg," Mr Smith said. "He was unconscious when people came to his aid."

Mr Jones went into cardiac arrest while the London Ambulance Service were tending to him. He died shortly afterwards at 1:08am.

The court also heard Mr Jones, who has a five-year-old child, was flung more than 15 metres from where he was struck by the force of the impact.

Mr Smith added: "The Bentley passed under the rear of the VW van at impact, lifting it off the ground and rotating it at approximately 135 degrees clockwise."

The court heard that after the collision "both the defendant passenger decamped and fled".

Albu, 33, who was remanded in custody following his arrest the next day, has previously served three years for robbery in Romania and has twice been convicted in the UK for driving without licence. Last year he was convicted of possession of cocaine and common assault. The crash happened while he was serving a suspended sentence for the offences.

At the time of his arrest, cocaine was found in his bloodstream.

Albu, who lives in a £1million flat in Bayswater with his wife, admitted causing death by dangerous driving, driving a vehicle not in accordance with licence and while uninsured, and failing to stop at the scene of a collision.

Mr Smith told the court that in the hours before the crash, witnesses told how he was racing through west London, weaving through traffic, slamming his brakes and revving his engine.

He added: "In fact 45 minutes before, one witness remarked 'they're going to kill someone driving like that'."

Judge Andrew Goymer sentenced him to eight years in prison and ordered he be disqualified from driving for ten years upon his release.