TRIBUTES have been paid to a Dover minister who died in an horrific crash on one of the country's busiest motorways. The Rev Nigel Booth, 44, has been described as "a true inspiration" by his congregation which has been left devastated by his sudden death.

Joyce Cook, a secretary at the church in Maison Dieu Road, said: "He was a wonderful man, absolutely committed and so conscientious.

Mr Booth was travelling home from a Christian festival in Minehead when an accident on the M5 left his car crushed by a lorry. His wife, June, who was in the passenger seat, remains in intensive care in a Bristol hospital.

The crash happened when an articulated lorry travelling southbound collided with a camper van parked on the hard shoulder, and crashed through the central reservation. The lorry then collided with another lorry and two cars before careering down an embankment.

Mr Booth, who lived in Manor Road, Maxton, near Dover, was driving a Nissan Primera which was trapped beneath the lorry. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Mr Booth gave up a lucrative sales job to dedicate himself to the Baptist Church. When he was living in Ashford in 1986, a friend invited him and his wife to a service at Ashford Baptist Church. Mr Booth said he was "completely bowled over"

The couple started going to church weekly and in July 1987 they were baptised. He went on to train at Spurgeon's College in London to become a Bachelor of Divinity and was appointed assistant minister at Ashford Baptist Church before being ordained in 1996.

He went to Dover in 2000 after a short time in Stoke on Trent. One of his aims in Dover was to develop the church's youth work and to help asylum seekers. Mr Booth had no children.