TONY Blair was put on the spot yesterday over the 12-week jail sentence for the hit and run driver who killed Burnley tot Levi Bleasdale.

The Prime Minister was asked at his press briefing at Downing Street what the Government would do to "ensure punishment fits the crime" after the sentence, which the three-year-old's family termed "an absolute joke".

He said sentencing guidelines should mean penalties "fit the crime".

Mr Blair said: "We have a series of sentencing guidelines now and what we cannot do, and it would be very wrong for us to do, is to interfere with individual court decisions.

"But the sentencing guidelines should allow courts to express the real public concern over crimes such as this, and although we can't intervene in individual decisions, the whole idea of setting a series of tariffs and guidelines for courts is so that they can take the very serious crimes very seriously and have penalties that are proper and fit the crime.

"So I can't go into the individual case, but that is the purpose of the reform we have introduced."

He spoke after Burnley MP Kitty Ussher, said she would ask the top legal authority to review the 12 week jail sentence handed to Mohammed Hussain, whose stolen and uninsured car killed the toddler.

In court prosecutors argued there was not enough evidence to justify a charge more serious than careless driving.

Levi died in an accident close to Burnley College in Ormerod Road.

Hussain, 26, of Thurston Street, Burnley who admitted careless driving, failing to stop and failing to report an accident when he appeared at court last week, also had no driving licence.

A Road Safety Bill before Parliament will create a new offence of causing death by careless driving, with a penalty of up to five years' imprisonment.