Serial drink-driver jailed for causing serious crash while twice the alcohol limit

Leanne Quinn was driving through Eyke from Tunstall when her car veered into the opposite lane and collided with an oncoming vehicle outside Mill House Picture: GOOGLE (Image: Google)

Leanne Quinn, 45, of Street Farm Close, Tunstall, admitted drink-driving for the fourth time in recent months at Suffolk Magistrates' Court on Tuesday.

The head-on crash happened on September 30 in Eyke - a day after she was arrested in Ipswich for driving while more than three times the limit.

On October 23, Quinn crashed a car on the B1069 in Tunstall while more than twice the limit and on bail for the first offence.

On January 2, she drove while disqualified, without insurance and while more than three times the limit in Rendlesham.

Quinn was handed a community order and banned from driving for four years for the offences in Ipswich and Tunstall.

The order was replaced in January with a suspended jail sentence and another six-month ban for the Rendlesham offences.

This week, magistrates chose to reopen the Rendlesham case and impose a concurrent jail sentence with the offence in Eyke, which only resulted in a charge following the outcome of blood tests.

Prosecutor David Bryant said Quinn's Skoda veered into the path of an oncoming car, leaving the other driver with a broken femur, a fractured pelvis and a leg injury, which may have led to a pulmonary aneurysm.

He said Quinn ignored orders from police at the scene to stop drinking water and chewing gum before undergoing a roadside breath test, and to stop reaching in the footwell for a mobile phone.

Quinn later told police she had no recollection of the crash.

Neither could she recall using a mobile phone, but said she may have messaged her boyfriend to let him know she was on her way to pick him up in Ipswich.

She denied being reliant on alcohol and said she had been going through a difficult time following the breakdown of a relationship.

Regarding the offences in Rendlesham, Mr Bryant said Quinn was found drunk, revving the engine of her smoking car, by a resident of Acer Road, who offered to drive her home but returned from retrieving his keys to find she had abandoned the vehicle and disappeared in a taxi.

She was later found at home, intoxicated, but denying she had driven anywhere.

Susan Threadkell, mitigating, said nothing could detract from the pain, suffering and "horrendous consequences" of the collision on the victim and his family.

She said Quinn had made progress on the rehabilitation requirement of her previous sentence and would benefit from the structure of a curfew requirement - restricting her from leaving the house to buy alcohol.

Chairman of the bench of magistrates, Michael Sweeting said: "In our view, the safety of the public requires an immediate term of imprisonment, as you don't seem to have learned from your previous behaviour."

Quinn's driving disqualification was also extended to six years.