Quote:Victoria Parry, 30, crashed into three cars while overtaking before ending up in a ditch where her car set on fire near Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, last May.

It was the third time she had been caught drink driving and was facing a possible prison sentence.

However, Judge Sarah Buckingham said: ‘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.’

She added: ‘You richly deserve an immediate custodial sentence of 18 months. I want to see whether you can really address the issues rather than paying lip service.

‘If you succeed, I will not make the custody immediate. If you don’t comply, I will conclude that you are not worthy of the chance.’

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.’

Other drivers rushed to her aid, including an off-duty police inspector who released her from her seat belt and pulled her out of the burning car.

He noticed she smelled of alcohol, and Parry told him that she had had a bottle of wine, telling him: ‘I shouldn’t be driving.’

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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The judge is being investigated by judicial authorities over what she said and sentencing she issued.

Is this judge related to Chicagos' AG? Both are dumb S'es.

I get that lady liberty didn't appear blind in this case; however, this isn't in America either... Britain will do what it will do - no skin off my nose wrt this incident.

There was a time when such offenses were punished the same way (extreme lenience) here in the US, too.

Courts got serious about it in stages from about 1980 to about 2000. Since then a single DUI-charge can destroy your life, even if there was no damage or injury.

There was an early episode of “Mad Men” set in about 1961, where the main character (Jon Hamm) is busted for drunk driving in Long Island. Interesting portrait of how law-enforcement has changed on this subject.