CABINET member Jack Straw has backed fellow East Lancashire MP Greg Pope's call for changes in the law after a twice banned driver involved in an accident which killed a young girl was jailed for just four months.

Amy Houston, 12, had to be freed by firefighters from underneath a vehicle after dashing into the road near her home in Ravenglass Close, Blackburn, at around 4.30pm on Monday, November 24.

Blackburn magistrates were told that 25-year-old Kurdish Iraqi asylum seeker Aso Mohammed Ibrahim ran off, leaving the girl pinned under his black Rover.

As he did not admit dangerous driving and there was no evidence to support such a charge, he was only prosecuted for lesser offences.

Despite being disqualified twice and already being on bail for offences of driving while banned, the maximum sentence available to magistrates was six months in prison, which they reduced to four because of his early guilty plea.

Following the crash Hyndburn Labour MP Mr Pope called for a new offence with tougher sentences to be introduced so drivers involved in similar fatal crashes can be properly punished.

Now Blackburn MP and Foreign Secretary Mr Straw has made a similar call. The former Home Secretary said: "I am surprised at the sentence. It is far too low.

"I agree with Greg that something needs to be done. I shall be speaking to him, and hopefully, the family about this."

After the case, Amy's father Paul Houston said the system had failed the family's "precious little girl."

Mr Houston, of Russia Street, Accrington, told how her death had left a void in her family's life that they would never be able to fill.

Ibrahim, of St James Road, Blackburn, pleaded guilty to driving while disqualified and without insurance and failing to stop after an accident.