‘Love triangle’ woman driver ‘out of control’

JON MACPHERSON

AN ‘out of control’ woman deliberately bumped into her former best friend’s car and then drove at police officers with a toddler in the back seat.

Prosecutors said the incident on Spring Street in Rishton involving the defendant Olivia Pearson was the result of a ‘love triangle gone wrong’.

Victim Chloey Keenan was married to but separated from John WalterWoods, Burnley Crown Court heard.

Stephen Parker, prosecuting, said Pearson and Miss Keenan used to be ‘best friends’ but during the course of her pregnancy with Mr WaltonWoods’ baby he left her and ‘set up home’ with Pearson.

Mr Parker said Mr Walter-Woods had visited Miss Keenan’s home on Spring Street and she returned home and heard the Mr Walter-Woods and Pearson ‘shouting and screaming’.

Pearson then deliberately hit Miss Keenan’s car with her own car and shouted ‘If you want any car left shut your disgusting face’. When police officers arrived they tried to speak to Pearson in the car.

Officers said Pearson was being ‘non-rational in her actions’ and told them ‘I’m not speaking to you. You’re frightening me’.

The court heard that Pearson then reversed the car before officers tried to block her in. One officer said: “I looked her in the eye. She had lost it. Emotionally she was out of control.”

Pearson then drove towards the officer before swerving onto the pave- ment and narrowly missing him and ‘nearly missing the front of several terraced houses’, a court was told.

Mr Parker said police took the decision not to pursue her because it ‘might do more harm than good’.

Pearson, 22, of Cleaver Street, Burnley, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, criminal damage and failing to stop after an accident. She was given a 10-month jail sentence, suspended for 12 months with a 30-day rehabilitation activity requirement.

Defence barrister Anthony Parkinson said she suffers from an ‘anxiety disorder’ and ‘clearly lost the plot for three or four minutes’.

He told the court that she is of previous good character and is ‘embarrassed and ashamed’ by her actions.

The court heard that following the incident she sought help and private counselling and ‘recognises the error of her ways’.

Mr Parkinson said: “It wasn’t a prolonged incident of dangerous driving. Perhaps by fortune more than anything else lives were not lost and there were no injuries whatsoever.”

Judge Beverley Lunt said it was ‘totally incongruous behaviour’ and that Pearson used her car ‘as a weapon’.

Sentencing, she said: “There is nothing in your life that can possibly justify the way you behaved on this day. It’s unbelievable the catalogue of your behaviour on this day.

“The police were so concerned they didn’t risk following you because you were so dangerous. You are fortunate that you didn’t harm a police officer.”