A COUPLE who lost their unborn daughter in a car crash caused by a Dorset man are calling for a change in the law to recognise unborn babies.

Jackie and Tom Luxon, from Axbridge, Somerset, are pressing for an amendment to the Road Traffic Act 1988 to recognise an unborn child over 24 weeks as a person. It would mean charges could be brought when an unborn child was seriously injured or killed in a road collision.

Mrs Luxon was 26 weeks pregnant when she lost her baby in a crash on the B3151 at Somerton in Somerset last year. Stuart Wells, of Sherborne, may have fallen asleep at the wheel when he drove head-on into two cars as he returned home from work.

Mr Luxon told the BBC he wanted to highlight "inconsistencies in the law.

"For example, if you went down a street and punched a pregnant woman in the stomach and she lost the baby, you could be prosecuted under the Infant Life Preservation Act 1929," he said.

"If the hospital had prioritised our daughter and she had lived - even for a second - it could have been a case of causing death by dangerous driving.

"But the Road Traffic Act doesn't recognise an unborn child... we are campaigning to address this massive mismatch in the law."

Wells, 29, initially tried to blame a sneeze for the collision, which happened on March 28, 2018. However, he later accepted this was not the case.

He was driving back to his home in Terrace View, Sherborne when his car 'drifted' into oncoming traffic on the B3151.

Mrs Luxon and her two-year-old daughter were left with life-changing injuries as a result of the crash.

Other drivers saw Wells' Ford Fiesta repeatedly drift in and out of the opposite carriageway for some seven miles. The car was also travelling faster than the 40mph speed limit.

Wells first clipped Mr Luxon's new Peugeot and then crashed head-on into Mrs Luxon's Seat, which was following behind.

Wells admitted two counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving. He was jailed for three years and seven months and was also banned from driving for six years and 10 months and ordered to take an extended retest.