A mother and her two daughters say someone must pay for the death of the father and husband they describe as "our hero".

Fighting back tears, Pam Jordon said: "It was a life stolen from us and someone has to be made accountable. We have to have our day in court and win justice."

Her husband Graham, 51, an experienced motorcyclist, died in a head-on crash with a car on the B2139 Duke's Hill at Thakeham, near Storrington, in August 2002.

Neither Mr Jordon nor the 48-year-old Renault car driver were doing anything wrong and neither was blamed.

Mrs Jordon said: "It appears the state of the road was to blame."

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is now considering corporate manslaughter charges against West Sussex County Council, responsible for maintaining the road, and Southern Water, which carried out a repair near the crash site.

Mrs Jordon, speaking for the first time, said she still found herself bursting into tears and had not slept properly since the crash.

She said: "This crash should never have happened. My husband should not have died.

"Our roads are crumbling. Why does someone have to die before anything is done?"

Sussex roads are among the worst maintained in the country, according to Government figures, with more than 2,500km in need of structural repairs.

Mrs Jordon, who has lived in the same village cottage near Oxted, Surrey, for 21 years, phones her council when she sees a pothole.

She said: "We shouldn't have to do this. There should be people checking our roads regularly and making sure they are safe."

The Government has pledged to introduce an offence of corporate killing and make it easier to bring charges.

Mrs Jordon is still waiting for an inquest and the decision of the CPS.

Whatever the outcome, she is considering a civil suit.

Mrs Jordon said: "Our lives have been shattered into a million pieces by his death. Graham was our hero."

Daughters Kelly, 25, and Kim, 21, have been left distraught.

Mr Jordon was an architect with airports operator BAA and was senior design architect for Gatwick's North Terminal and Terminal Five at Heathrow.

Motorbikes were his passion.

He was a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists and a skilled senior observer for Wey Valley Motorcycle Club.

He was out riding with a former policeman training a third rider at the time of the crash.