FORMER Olympic champion Linford Christie has failed in a bid to overturn a driving ban given to him after a car crash in Bucks that saw another driver break both his legs.

The 51-year-old was given a 15 month ban from driving after an Aylesbury Crown Court jury found him guilty of careless driving in July.

Christie, who took 100m gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, crashed head-on with a taxi carrying a newly wed couple after driving nearly 200m on the wrong side of the A413 near his then home in Chalfont St Peter.

Jurors cleared him of dangerous driving after hearing he had just returned from America and made "an innocent mistake" in driving on the right hand side of the road.

He challenged his driving disqualification at London's Court of Appeal but his appeal was today dismissed by two top judges. They did however reduce the amount he was fined from £5,000 to £3,000.

During his trial jurors were told taxi driver Naeem Akhtar, from Chesham, was in hospital for three months after the accident for treatment on two broken legs, right elbow and left wrist.

His back seat passenger Peter Ashton, 58, suffered a punctured lung and four broken ribs. He and newly-married wife Claire Lloyd-Ashton was on his way from their reception in Chalfont St Giles to the Bull Hotel on the A40.