Two notorious criminals died in a New Year’s Eve crash on a stretch of road which has claimed seven lives in just five years.

Floral tributes to Billy Brown and John Butlin have been left at the scene of the crash on the A229 where wreckage from their blue Mercedes still lies.

They had been travelling towards Hastings when the car hit a tree on Linton Hill.

Emergency services were called to the junction with Stilebridge Lane shortly before 11pm but Mr Brown, 36, and Mr Butlin, 37, both from East Sussex, could not be saved.

They had both served time in prison after a failed plot to steal £30,000 from a security van.

A shot was fired when armed officers from the Metropolitan Police’s flying squad intercepted the pair, as well as a third man, after they were seen acting suspiciously during a cash delivery in Battle High Street.

Mr Brown and Mr Butlin had also stalked a van making cash deliveries at a retail park in Canterbury and were filmed following a van making deliveries in Ashford and Tenterden.

During a sentencing hearing at the Old Bailey in March 2007, Mr Brown was jailed for six-and-a-half years and Mr Butlin was given a four-and-a-half-year sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to steal.

Mr Brown had only been released on licence a few weeks before the failed heist after serving a six-year sentence for robbery and firearms offences in Wye.

Mr Butlin had also been jailed previously, in 2001, for stabbing a man through the top of the head and was given a six-year sentence on appeal.

Detectives are continuing to appeal for witnesses to the fatal collision to come forward.

The two men are the sixth and seventh people to die in accidents on the same stretch of the A229, at the bottom of Linton Hill, since 2013.

Before the latest accident, Madalin-Constantin Lungoci, 22, from Hastings, had been the last person to lose his life there, following a head-on collision with another driver who had lost control of their vehicle on December 4.

Mr Brown’s and Mr Butlin’s deaths came just hours before a man in his 50s was knocked down by a car and killed in Chatham.

It happened in Luton Road, shortly before 1.10am on New Year’s Day.

A 21-year-old was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving but was later released on bail pending further inquiries.

The following evening, motorcyclist Ismael Brittain, 19, was killed in a crash in Princes Avenue in Chatham. Two men were arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and fleeing the scene.

Anyone who saw the blue Mercedes Mr Brown and Mr Butlin were travelling in in the moments leading up to the Linton Hill crash is asked to call the appeal line on 01622 798538 or email sciu.td@kent.pnn.police.uk quoting reference DS/MW//291/17.