Driver imprisoned for ‘motorised pub crawl’

A COUPLE have criticised a driver who crashed into their living room while on a “motorised pub crawl” .

James Sparham, 29, was jailed for five years after driving his car at high speed through the living room wall of a house in Rawcliffe, York, while almost three times the legal drink-drive limit.

York Crown Court was told the crash, on Sept 3 last year, caused £175,000 damage to the home of David Garnett, 54 and his wife Claire, 50.

It also left Mr Garnett with “life-changing injuries” after he was trapped underneath the car bonnet.

Sophie Armitage and Nathan Lofthouse, two passengers in the vehicle, were also injured.

Rachael Landin, prosecuting, told the court the Garnetts had been sat in their living room on separate sofas moments before the 3am crash and that Mrs Garnett had just left the room to enter the kitchen when she heard a “loud bang”. She then struggled to try to pull her husband from the rubble and their 12-year-old son came downstairs and witnessed the horrific sight.

In a victim impact statement read in court, Mr Garnett said he thought the car was going to “explode any second”. He said: “That moment made my life change forever. I had to learn to walk again...i am a shell of the man from before the crash and I am in mental freefall. I don’t know how I will ever recover from this incident.”

Judge Paul Batty QC told Sparham: “You were drunk. You had been going on a motorised pub crawl.”

Sparham admitted three counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and one of criminal damage.

He was also banned from driving for seven and a half years.