Passenger hurt when drink-driver hit a wall

GIRLFRIEND HAD REPEATEDLY URGED MAN TO LET HER OUT

A DRINK-DRIVER smashed into a wall, injuring his girlfriend who had repeatedly pleaded for him to stop the car.

Harry Brier had drunk several pints at a pub in Blaby.

His girlfriend phoned for a taxi but painter and decorator Brier got into his van and she joined him.

Leaving the pub at 1.20am on September 8, 21-year-old Brier reversed into a parked car before speeding off and mounting a kerb, crashing into a wall in Lutterworth Road.

His girlfriend was in hospital for three weeks with a fractured sternum, a bleed on her brain, broken ribs and nerve damage to her leg. She had to have two operations.

During a hearing at Leicester Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, during which Brier pleaded guilty to drinkdriving, prosecutor Sukhy Basi said: “He reversed so fast he hit a vehicle and she (his girlfriend) was jolted forward by the impact.

“As he turned left out of the car park she said, ‘Let me out, can we stop?.’

“She recalls he was driving really fast and that she told him five or six times to stop.

“The next thing she remembers is waking up in hospital.”

Mr Basi said Brier’s girlfriend had told police he had drunk eight or nine pints of lager.

However, Michelle Harding, representing Brier, said this was unlikely as his breathalyser reading was only 57 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit 35 micrograms.

Ms Harding said: “If he did drink so much, the alcohol level would have been much higher.”

She also said the evidence about Brier’s girlfriend’s injuries were from the girlfriend, not from the hospital where she was treated.

Speaking about her client’s decision to drive, Ms Harding said: “It was extremely stupid and foolish.”

She said Brier, of Leopold Road, Clarendon Park, Leicester, had lost his girlfriend because of the incident and his job, because he no longer feels able to drive.

Chairman of the bench Stephen Bryan told Brier: “The facts that make this appalling incident worse were that you were carrying a passenger and she asked you on a number of occasions to stop so she could get out.

“You reversed into a parked car and didn’t stop. You drove into the road at high speed and you caused extremely serious injuries to your girlfriend.”

Brier was banned from driving for 22 months and given a one-year community order with 55 hours of unpaid work. He was also ordered to pay £85 court costs and a £90 victim surcharge.