A drug addict who killed a child actor and his aunt when he ploughed into them in a stolen car has been jailed.

Joshua Dobby, 23, who had a £60-a-day heroin and crack cocaine habit, was sentenced to 12 years in prison today at the Old Bailey for the manslaughter of 10-year-old Makayah McDermott and Rosie Cooper, 34.

Dobby, who smiled as he left the dock, has 53 previous convictions and was being pursued by police at the time of the horror crash in Lennard Road, Penge, on August 31 last year.

He was driving a stolen black Ford Focus without a licence and CCTV footage shown to the court saw him driving the wrong way down one-way streets.

Dobby, of no fixed address, had been “sofa-surfing” with friends in exchange for drugs and at the time of the crash he was on the way to sell the stolen car in order to buy more drugs, the Old Bailey was told.

He admitted he was experiencing withdrawal from heroin and crack cocaine, but had not used drugs on the day of the crash.

While in prison Dobby wrote to his girlfriend and said he wished it was him that had died, the court heard.

He told her: "It is f*****, I killed a ten-year-old, I can’t express how f****** terrible I feel. It haunts me every night.

“Two people have lost their lives cos of my selfish f****** actions and it all boils down to drugs.

"It should have been me that lost my life but it wasn't. I still have a life and I'm determined to do something with it for the sake of that child.”

Mitigating, Tyrone Smith QC said Dobby had a "horrific family setting" and a "principal family member" was also an addict.

In a victim impact statement read out in court by Anthony Orchard QC, Makayah’s grandfather and Ms Cooper's father Martin Cooper told how he felt he had “let them down.”

He said: “On that day I was there, I watched the car drive into and over all five members of my family.

“My daughter, my grandchildren, all became worthless in the eyes of the man driving the car. Their only value was to cause a scene of death and destruction.

“[As a grandparent] you provide protection and safety and most of all love, and on this day I let them down. They were all in my care."

Dobby was sentenced to 15 years in prison with three on license for the manslaughter of Makayah McDermott, 15 years in prison with three on license for the manslaughter of Rosie Cooper, three years and four months in prison for causing serious injury by dangerous driving and 16 months in prison for dangerous driving in a separate incident on August 26.

The sentences will run concurrently.