OUR heart goes out today to the family of Kacper Grzeszek.

We can only apologise, on behalf of the county of Oxfordshire, that this bright young man, who travelled to our county on his gap year, was killed in the most disgusting and needless way.

Although we would of course accept that accidents do happen, as Judge Nigel Daly said at Oxford Crown Court yesterday, this was no accident.

This was an appalling act of selfishness by a young man – exactly the same age as Kacper – who had already proven in the previous years that he was a reckless and dangerous driver, and who then, on the night of July 7 this year, drank far too much, got into his BMW and then proceeded to drive in the most reckless and stupid way through Abingdon.

This was not a choice, but a series of choices by a man who had every reason to know better.

Kacper’s sister yesterday issued a statement in which she didn’t even mention her brother’s killer, but made a simple appeal.

She pleaded with everyone reading to never drink and drive.

It is an appeal which we would wholeheartedly endorse.

The roads of our county are already notoriously treacherous – partly because so many of them wind in unpredictable ways through rural villages and dales.

We already have far too many traffic accidents in Oxfordshire, and yet the majority of them are still caused by the way people choose to behave.

Police repeatedly tell us that people driving too fast and not paying attention leads to a huge number of crashes.

The idea of someone also getting drunk before getting behind the wheel is really unforgivable.

We leave the last words to Kacper's sister.

“Please, never drink and drive and always be extremely careful during driving, be brave enough to stop someone drunk driving and report every single act of dangerous driving to police.”