A man has been jailed for using his mobile phone behind the wheel of an HGV lorry and causing a pile-up on a busy motorway.

Razvan Rusu, 30 (20.01.86) of no fixed address was sentenced to eight months in prison for dangerous driving at Harrow Crown Court.

He was also banned from driving for three years and required to take an extended retest.

Rusu, a Romanian national who had been living in the UK, left the country and returned to Romania after the incident. On his return to the UK he was summonsed and his passport seized.

He pleaded guilty to dangerous driving on Monday, 10 October at the same court.

Police were called at 08:20hrs on 17 March 2015 to the scene of a road traffic collision on the M1, near junction 2.

Officers attended and established that an HGV tipper lorry had crashed into slow moving traffic, causing damage to three cars and injuring two drivers. Both drivers were taken to hospital for treatment but released the same day.

Police recovered dash cam footage of the incident from the HGV which clearly showed Rusu using his mobile phone for a distance of two kilometres prior to the crash.

One male driver noticed the fast approaching HGV and managed to swerve out of the way, avoiding a potentially serious or fatal injury.

Detective Sergeant Stephen Pidgeon of the Serious Collision Investigation Unit said: “Rarely is it possible to see such a clear example of the risks some drivers are willing to take with mobile phones and the danger that using them whilst driving can cause.

“It is only down to the quick thinking of one of the drivers who moved just before impact that there weren’t multiple serious injuries or even worse. That the driver was willing to take these risks whilst being aware that he was being filmed is even more incredible.”