Next month will mark the first anniversary of the Eastern Bypass car crash, which claimed the lives of four young people and ripped apart their communities.

For the family of 13-year-old victim Liam Hastings, of Rose Hill, Oxford, time has been no healer. Mum Sam, and dad Ricky, still visit Liam's grave in Iffley church yard every day, and the couple cannot contemplate going on holiday without him.

They hoped the sentencing of Angela Dublin earlier this month, who pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving, would provide a degree of closure.

But instead they have been left feeling angry and frustrated at the two-year jail term handed down to her.

Speaking exclusively to the Oxford Mail, Mrs Hastings said: "We agonised over our victim impact statements. We were in tears remembering everything, but they do not seem to have made a blind bit of difference.

"What's the difference between the nurse who killed two people and her? He used a syringe as a weapon, she used her car.

"It would have cost her £4 for a taxi, but instead she took four lives."

Last week's announcement that the Crown Prosecution Service is appealing against Dublin's comparatively short sentence the average dangerous driving sentence is five years was welcomed by the Hastings.

Mrs Hastings added: "I know that even if she is given 25 years it is not going to bring Liam back, but to kill four I think she should receive at least double figures."

Liam's friends, Marshall Haynes and Josh Bartlett, both 13, were also killed after Dublin's car veered across the road into a car driven by student Howard Hillsdon, 21, who was also killed.

At the Hastings' family home in Rivermead Road, they said life without Liam pictured here in the last photo ever taken of him was still tough.

Mr Hastings said: "We are just getting by, but it is getting harder, not easier by the day.

"Everyone looks at us and we are the perfect little family, but that's not what we are, one of our boys is gone forever.

"People say why do we go to his grave every day, but we would speak to Liam every day if he was here. Some days we don't want to go to the churchyard but then we think we have not seen him, so we go, in the rain and the snow.

"The hardest time is going to be if we go on holiday and miss a week."

The couple also go to the Eastern Bypass, near to the site of the accident, as close to the 28th day of the month the day of the crash last year as they can.

The couple have been overwhelmed by the way family and friends rallied round following the accident, and more than 2,000 gold ribbons have been sold to raise money for a memorial garden at Oxford Community School, where Liam was a pupil.

Mr Hastings added: "It is strange because people have been really good, but they try and avoid the subject now. It's a shame because we absolutely love talking about him."