Woman jailed for driving wrong way down motorway

Former financial adviser who drove 23 miles down fast lane of the M5 while twice the drink-drive limit jailed for nine months A woman who drove 23 miles the wrong way along a motorway while twice the drink-drive limit has been jailed for nine months. Deborah Hunt, 43, drove down the fast lane of the M5, dodging oncoming vehicles before coming to a halt on the hard shoulder. Hunt, a mother of three from Langport, Somerset, was sentenced at Bristol crown court after admitting dangerous driving, driving with excess alcohol and driving without insurance. She wept in the dock as Judge Mark Horton said he would be failing in his public duty if he did not jail her immediately for so serious an offence. The court heard that Hunt, an unemployed former financial adviser, was suffering from alcoholism and stress caused by her unemployment and an ongoing battle with her ex-husband over custody of their children. But Horton said it was “unbelievably fortunate” no one had been killed or injured by her as she drove at 60mph after 11pm on 14 July in northern Somerset. The court heard she got on at junction 24 and briefly headed south before stunning other drivers by doing a U-turn and driving north. She was found by police on the hard shoulder near junction 21, struggling to restart the engine of her partner’s Peugeot 806. “You drove for something in excess of 20 miles on the wrong side of the road, causing terror in members of the public lawfully using the motorway to travel in the right direction,” Horton said. “You risked causing massive loss of life and huge destruction of property. “You suffer from a severe illness, alcoholism is a severe illness. It is tragic in one sense that society has forgotten, in its obsession with the damage caused by drugs, how much more damage is caused by alcohol. “It is clear that the combination of the stress and alcoholism you have suffered created an extremely dangerous position, culminating in this offence. “I would be failing in my duty if I did not reflect the seriousness of what you did by imposing an immediate custodial sentence.” Crime Motoring guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 7, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.