A serial drink driver who smashed into three cars after guzzling a bottle of wine has been spared jail – because she's a woman.
Alcoholic Victoria Parry, 30, had been told by a female judge at a previous hearing that, if she had been a man, "it would have been straight down the stairs" to prison.
Instead, she was handed a suspended sentence and slapped with a driving ban today by the same judge.
A court heard she was dragged from the flaming wreck by other drivers on the A46 near Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, at around 6.50pm on May 23, 2018.
A breathalsyer test showed she had 102 micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of breath – almost three times the legal limit of 35mcg.
Parry, of Stratford-upon-Avon, was handed an 18-month suspended sentence, and was banned from driving for 24 months in the sentencing at Birmingham Crown Court.
Judge Sarah Buckingham – who sentenced her – previously sparked outrage when she had gave her a second chance on account of her gender.
She told the court during the previous appearance: "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."
When Parry was arrested she took a breath test at the police station almost two hours later and was still well over the legal limit.
Prosecutor Tim Sapwell said: "Her driving was such that she caught the rear bumper of a van, and she next hit the wing mirror of a Vauxhall Insignia, and then the side of a BMW very heavily.
"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 in the road and go down the embankment into a wooded area where it caught fire."
The court heard Parry had been banned from driving for three years in July 2015 for her second excess alcohol offence.
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