A banned drink-driver has been spared from jail after smashing into three other vehicles - because she wasn't a man.

Judge Sarah Buckingham told 'alcoholic' Victoria Parry she would have been walking 'straight down the stairs' to prison had she been a male.

The 30-year-old - who already had two previous drink-driving convictions - was dragged from her Fiat Stilo after it caught fire following the pile-up on the A46 last year.

[...]

The judge commented: “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.”