Drink-drive girls escape jail ... and head straight for pub
TWO “ashamed” teenage girls who avoided jail after a drinkdrive crash celebrated just minutes after leaving court – in a pub.
Alesha Peers, 18, and Kaitlyn Morris, 19, headed straight for a hostelry and later a wine bar, after walking free.
Peers, who had no driving licence, had been drunk on white wine when she took her mother’s Honda Civic for a drive, with Morris as a passenger, in Newton Heath, Manchester.
She lost control of the car after 500 yards and ploughed into a parked vehicle.
The owner of the wrecked car came out of a house to find Peers slumped at the wheel and Morris drunk in the passenger seat.
Police breath-tested Peers and found she was more than twice the drink driving limit.
Her mother Michelle, 39, said she knew nothing about the girls taking her car.
Anxious
Peers pleaded guilty at Manchester magistrates court to driving with excess alcohol, aggravated vehicle taking, driving without insurance and driving without a licence.
Morris pleaded guilty to being willingly carried in a vehicle taken without the owner’s consent.
Both walked free after their lawyer said the girls were “anxious and ashamed” at what they had done, saying it was “out of character” for them.
Peers was ordered to complete a 12-month community order, plus 100 hours unpaid work and was banned from driving for 22 months. Morris was ordered to be electronically tagged for two months between 7pm and 7am each night.
Both girls must pay prosecution costs and a victim surcharge.
After the verdict, the girls were seen grinning as they left the Rising Sun pub in Manchester, before meeting friends in a nearby bar.
It is not known whether they £85 £85 drank alcohol. The court heard the crash occurred in July after the two girls, both from Newton Heath, spent an evening drinking with Peers’ mother.
Prosecutor Eileen Rogers said: “Alesha Peers’ mother became aware that the two girls had left and she assumed that they had gone to the shop.
“A neighbour was visiting her sister and was about to leave when she heard a loud bang. She went outside and saw that her car had been rammed and had hit a garden wall. She saw Alesha in the driver’s seat of the car and her friend Kaitlyn was in the passenger seat. She then called the police.
“It also became clear that the pair of them had been drinking alcohol.
“The car was only Alesha’s mother.”
Magistrates’ chairwoman Gillian Pearson told Peers: “We have listened to the probation report and this situation you find yourself in is extremely serious.
“I don’t think that you appreciate how serious this is.” insured to