AN Army sergeant has admitted killing a Batley-born police constable in a car crash.
Staff Sgt Steven Graham had been arrested and was being driven to the cells when he grabbed the patrol car's handbrake as the vehicle travelled at 70mph.
The driver, Pc Joe Carroll, 46, died from severe head injuries after the car overturned on the A69 near Hexham, Northumberland, in April.
Graham, 39, a communications instructor at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, pleaded guilty at Newcastle Crown Court to the manslaughter of the long-serving constable.
He denied another charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm against Inspector Brian English, who was also in the car.
Crown prosecutors said Graham's pleas were acceptable and he was remanded in custody for the preparation of pre-sentence reports.
Pc Carroll, described by his boss as "the sort of bobby you would all want to have as your local copper", had been the community officer in Bellingham, Northumberland, for 13 years.
Hundreds of people attended his funeral in Newcastle's Catholic Cathedral Church of St Mary. They included a police guard of honour.
Pc Carroll was in the North Yorkshire police force for two years before moving to Northumbria Police in 1984.
His mother, Hilda and two sisters, Mary and Trish, still live in West Yorkshire.
Pc Carroll and his wife, Caroline, 46, a teacher in Gosforth, Newcastle, had no children.
They met as students in Sunderland and both were devout Christians.
