A father was jailed for two years today for causing the deaths of four of his children by driving dangerously.

The children, aged between two and eight, died when his dangerously modified Land Rover careered into the River Witham, Lincolnshire, in September 2007.

Father-of-seven Nigel Gresham, 37, kept his head bowed as sentence was passed at Lincoln Crown Court, the Press Association reported.

He had been found guilty at a trial last month.

Judge Michael Heath told him he would serve at least half of his two-year sentence and would be disqualified from driving for five years.

"The simple fact is that your Land Rover should not have been on the road. It was, to coin a phrase, an accident waiting to happen," the judge said.

"Those who died were the four youngest of your seven children. What happened was horrendous."

The judge said collision investigators had never seen such a badly maintained vehicle before.