AN Iraqi farm labourer who drove a minibus into the path of an express train on a level crossing was jailed for five years after being convicted of killing three of his passengers.

Adnan Kadir Karim was behind the wheel of a van carrying migrant workers when it was struck by a London-bound train travelling at 90mph near the Worcestershire village of Charlton.

The 25-year-old was unable to read English and failed to take account of signs telling drivers to stop at the crossing before going over the tracks.

Yesterday, a jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court took four hours to reach unanimous guilty verdicts on Karim, who had denied three counts of manslaughter by criminal negligence, at the end of a six-day trial.

He was jailed for five years on each of the three charges to run concurrently and banned from driving for two years.

During the trial, the court was told how Karim, of Carpenters Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, ignored safety features at the crossing. These included an underpass, stop signs and a phone linked to the signal box at nearby Evesham.

The collision on Monday, July 7 last year claimed the lives of Soran Karim, a 23-year-old Iraqi, Satish Kumar, 28, from India, and Islam Uddin Ahmed, 46, from Bangladesh.

It emerged at the trial that Karim had neither a British or Iraqi driving licence and had never taken a test.

Speaking after the case, Det Chief Insp David Lester, of British Transport Police, said the train had struck the van only a glancing blow, sparing the lives of several passengers.

"This is a particularly tragic case," he said. "Three people are dead as a result of the recklessness of Mr Karim.

"If he had gone onto the crossing a bit further, you could have had 10 people dead in that van. There were 150 people on the train and it could have been a hell of a lot worse."

Peter Luff, the Tory MP for Mid-Worcestershire, was travelling to London on the train when it struck the vehicle.

Speaking after the hearing, Mr Luff said: "This is a tragedy for everyone involved and I will be studying the case very carefully to see what lessons should be learnt from it.

"But I am clear the accident focuses the attention of the Government on the need to do something about the use of casual foreign labour."