Judge spares drink-driver jail... just because she is a woman
A SERIAL drink-driver who downed a bottle of wine before causing a three- car pile-up was spared jail – because she’s a woman.
Victoria Parry, 30, an alcoholic, was told by the female judge who sentenced her that if she had been a man ‘it would have been straight down the stairs’ to the cells.
The court heard Parry was already serving a motoring ban for drinkdriving when she swerved out to overtake – forcing oncoming vehicles to take evasive action.
Her Fiat Stilo clipped two vehicles and then ploughed side- on into a third before spinning off the A46 Stratford-upon-Avon bypass in Warwickshire and bursting into flames in woodland last May. Parry, of Stratford-upon-Avon, was dragged from the burning vehicle by a passing offduty policeman.
She admitted dangerous driving but judge Sarah Buckingham told her she would defer the sentence for three months ‘to see whether you can really address the issues rather than paying lip service’.
The judge added: ‘If Miss Parry was a man, there is no question it would have been straight down the stairs, because this is a shocking case of dangerous driving against a background of two previous convictions for excess alcohol.
‘But this offence was committed in May 2018 and she has not been in trouble since. She has clearly got an alcohol problem. She is, whether she admits it or not, an alcoholic.’
The judge said Parry, who has no children, ‘richly deserved’ a prison sentence of 18 months for the offence, but said she was giving the defendant a chance to address her issues.
She added: ‘If you succeed, I will
‘Straight down the stairs’
not make the custody immediate. If you don’t comply, I will conclude that you are not worthy of the chance.’
Prosecutor Tim Sapwell told Warwick Crown Court on Thursday that Parry had clipped the rear bumper of a van, then hit a wing mirror of a Vauxhall Insignia, before ploughing into a BMW. He added: ‘She hit it with such force that the BMW’s rear wheel was knocked off and the car was written off. It caused her Fiat to spin off the road into a wooded area where it caught fire.’
Other drivers rushed to her aid, including an off-duty police inspector who released her from her seatbelt and pulled her from the burning car. He noticed she smelled of alcohol, and Parry told him she had drunk a bottle of wine, telling him: ‘I shouldn’t be driving.’
The court heard Parry was banned
from driving for three years in July 2015 for her second excess alcohol offence. When she had a breath test at the police station almost two hours later, the reading was only just under three times the legal limit of 35mg per 100ml of breath.
Lucy Tapper, defending, said Parry started drinking up to two bottles of wine a day after being in an abusive relationship but said that she now had her drinking ‘under control’.
Parry will return to court for sentencing in July. The judge set strict conditions that she had to abide by if she was to avoid jail. She had to provide proof she was abstaining from alcohol and that she had sought counselling. She was also handed an interim driving ban.
A spokesman for road safety charity Brake said drink-drivers put lives in danger, adding: ‘Repeat offenders are the most dangerous and they must be dealt with severely, regardless of gender, so they no longer pose a threat to road users.’
A spokesman for the independent Judicial Conduct Investigations Office said it had received a complaint ‘in connection with remarks attributed’ to Judge Buckingham, which would be considered.