A Polish national who killed an elderly couple and their two-year-old grandchild when he drove onto a cycle path in Limburg in 2013 has been jailed for 15 months on appeal. The man has also been banned from driving for four years.

Last November, a lower court sentenced the man to 120 hours community service when judges ruled there was not enough evidence the 34-year-old had lost control of the vehicle because he was speeding.

He was found guilty of dangerous driving but not of manslaughter.

The appeal judges on Wednesday disagreed with that verdict which, they said, had not done justice to the law. The court ruled the accident was the result of the driver speeding and that he is therefore guilty of killing the couple and the toddler.

Relatives had reacted furiously to the lower court verdict last year and the father of the child threw a chair at the judge.