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A teenage driver who had only passed his test a day earlier killed a “model husband and model father” when he smashed into his car at almost 100mph.

Sean Sullivan had intimidated and tailgated drivers as he sped around the Gower at 80mph before he collided head-on with a car carrying husband and wife Tim and Yvonne Malone.

A judge said Sullivan, now 20, was being a “Jack the lad” and showing off to his friends when he lost control of his car and ploughed into the oncoming vehicle carrying the couple, who had been together more than 40 years.

Ordnance Survey worker Mr Malone and his wife had been driving from their home in Hampshire to a caravan park in Port Eynon — a place they had holidayed for decades — when 19-year-old Sullivan crashed into them.

Swansea Crown Court heard the fatal smash was the culmination of an episode of dangerous driving on Gower by Sullivan on the evening of July 31 last year, which had seen him tearing across Cefn Bryn at speeds estimated at 80mph, intimidating and tailgating other drivers.

Sullivan, of Penyrheol Road, Gorseinon, pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving, causing serious injury by dangerous driving, and two counts of dangerous driving when he appeared in the dock on Friday.

Prosecutor Ian Wright told the court data from Sullivan’s Kia Pro Ceed GT showed he was doing 98mph as he tore along the B4271 over Cefn Bryn just before 10.30pm.

He was travelling so fast the driver of a car in front of him thought he was going to collide with him and braced against the steering wheel.

At the last second Sullivan swerved around him and straight into the path of the oncoming Mr Malone.

The barrister said 67-year-old Mr Malone had to be cut from the wreckage of his Rover and airlifted to hospital — but en route he suffered a cardiac arrest and died.

Mr Malone’s wife suffered a smashed leg and broken ribs in the crash and subsequently needed reconstructive surgery and months of rehabilitation.

In a powerful victim impact statement read to the court by Mr Malone’s wife she told Sullivan that in killing her husband he had “torn me, my heart, my soul into bloodied tatters”.

She described her husband as an unassuming man who didn’t realise how much his “big, gentle kindness” had affected the people around him, adding he had shown their sons Joe and Jack by example how to be “fine, true-hearted men”.

Jason Taylor, for Sullivan, said his client was full of remorse for what he had done and the pain he had caused.

Judge Peter Heywood said Sullivan had been acting like a “Jack the lad” on the night in question and was showing off to his friends and full of bravado.

He said the defendant had been driving at speeds he was ill-equipped to deal with due to his lack of experience.

The judge described Mr Malone as a “model husband and model father”.

He sentenced Sullivan to a total of five years in a young offenders’ institution — half of which he will serve in custody — and disqualified him from driving for four years from the date of his release.