Jail for the joyriding gran with 90 previous convictions
A YOUNG grandmother with a near three-decade history of terrorising the roads has been jailed after clocking up 90 offences.
Kerry Taylor, 44, was arrested after ignoring driving bans to take a joyride in a stolen Renault that she smashed into a car being driven by a man in his eighties, a court heard.
The pensioner was unhurt but his car was a write-off. Police gave chase when Taylor veered on to the wrong side of the road and into the path of oncoming traffic in an attempt to get away.
Inquiries revealed that the cocaine-snorting serial offender – who has a one-year-old grandson – had motoring convictions dating back to 1994 including driving with excess alcohol, drugdriving and failing to stop after an accident.
Only seven weeks before last month’s smash, Taylor had been given a 30-month road ban after driving while four times the drugdrive limit. In April she had been disqualified for a year for driving the same VW Golf while eight times the drug limit.
Taylor, from Wigan, was jailed for a year at Bolton Crown Court on Tuesday and branded a ‘danger to the roads’ by a judge.
She was also given a further 40month driving ban after she admitted aggravated vehicle taking, dangerous driving, driving while disqualified, failing to stop and having no insurance.
The crash occurred in Wigan on August 9 after Taylor was seen driving a Renault Clio that had been stolen two weeks earlier from an Amazon delivery driver out dropping off parcels.
Gemma Maxwell, prosecuting, said she ‘reversed at speed’ and collided with a Toyota. ‘[The Renault] then accelerated away and was driven at speed on the wrong side of the road, forcing oncoming vehicles to take evasive action,’ she told the court.
‘At the time the road was very busy – there were a lot of vehicles and little room for manoeuvre.’
Taylor was chased and stopped after being hemmed in by police, the prosecutor added.
The Toyota owner Kevin Sharman, who is in his 80s, said in a statement his car was written off, leaving him more than £400 out of pocket.
‘I’m really upset but very surprised I didn’t suffer any serious injury due to the level of force of the impact,’ he added. ‘I’ve been driving for 60 years and never had any kind of accident.’
The court heard Taylor had motoring convictions from 1994 and 1998, and in 2003 was twice convicted of careless driving and failing to stop after an accident. She was convicted of drink-driving in 2006.
Taylor also has a record for other crimes, including a burglary in 2018 when she raided a house while on crutches. Last May she was convicted of stealing £296 of groceries from a supermarket.
In mitigation, defence counsel Claire Brocklebank said Taylor had issues with epilepsy, anxiety and depression and had been planning to drive the stolen Renault to her local chemist to pick up a prescription. ‘She feels
‘A reckless and stupid decision’
stupid for committing this offence,’ she added.
Arguing for leniency, Miss Brocklebank said Taylor helped her teenage daughter with her schoolwork as well as providing childcare for her other daughter’s baby boy.
But Judge Graeme Smith, explaining why he was locking her up, told Taylor she had taken ‘a very reckless and stupid decision to drive a stolen car in this dangerous manner when you had been disqualified not once but twice within the preceding few months’.
he added: ‘It is very unusual for me to be sentencing a woman for dangerous driving – it is almost always young men driving in police chases.’