A SOLDIER who survived an explosion that killed Westhoughton’s Kingsman Darren Deady has been jailed.

Ashley Clark, aged 23, suffered brain damage in the blast on August 23, 2010, in the Nahr-e Saraj District of Helmand Province. His comrades Kingsman Deady, aged 22, and Captain Andrew Griffiths, aged 25, died.

Clark, of no fixed address, who served with the 2nd Battalion of the Duke of Lancaster’s regiment, was sentenced to 21 months at Burnley Crown Court.

Clark racially abused a taxi driver on July 25 last year.

He had admitted racially aggravated threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, two counts of police assault, being drunk and disorderly and common assault, and was in breach of a suspended jail term.