A woman who killed her husband in a car crash after grabbing the handbrake at nearly 60mph during a drunken row has been jailed for two years.

Caroline Meeking, 45, and her husband Alan, 49, were on their way home to Somerset from a day's drinking in Bridport when they crashed into another vehicle.

Meeking, of Park Barn Lane, Ashill, Ilminster, denied the single charge of manslaughter but was convicted following a trial at Bristol Crown Court in November.

During the two-day trial the jury heard that Meeking and her husband had between them drunk two bottles of rose wine and later had four or five pints of lager each.

Meeking told the court she did not intend to kill her husband and did not know the car would react the way it did. She said she simply wanted to get away from him as the argument had already lasted 30 minutes.

The couple, who had been together for nine years and married for 12 months, were arguing as they drove along the unlit A3088 at Montacute, near Yeovil on the evening of August 30 last year.

Meeking pulled the handbrake, pulling their silver Ford Escort into a spin, heading side-on at speed into the path of a car coming in the opposite direction. The driver of the other car, a green Rover 620, had no time to react and the two cars collided shortly before 10.30pm.

Despite wearing his seat belt, Mr Meeking suffered catastrophic injuries and was declared dead at the scene by medics. The other motorist escaped without serious injury.

Blood tests carried out afterwards found that Mr Meeking, who was 5ft 9ins and weighed more than 17 stone, was twice the drink-drive limit that night.

Witnesses to the accident told police they believed Mr Meeking was driving without his headlights on.

Passing sentence, Judge Neil Ford QC, the Recorder of Bristol, said: ''In my judgment, this case is so serious I must pass an immediate custodial sentence.

''A suspended sentence or community order would not reflect the seriousness of the offending.''

Meeking showed little emotion as she was led away to begin her sentence.