Road shut after drink driver left trail of damage

Jailing Depinder Lal for nine months yesterday Judge Kerry Macgill told him: "How you didn't kill anybody I don't know."

Events began on August 27 last year when officers in a marked police car were waiting behind a Fiesta at a junction in Leeds.

As the lights changed it started to move off and they saw Lal's black Corsa approaching from the opposite direction at speed.

Katherine Robinson, prosecuting, told Leeds Crown Court, Lal took "a violent right hand turn" into Harehills Lane, striking the Fiesta as he did so.

The woman driver pulled up and an officer went to speak to her. Lal also appeared to pull up but as a constable walked towards him he drove on, before pulling over again.

The officer ran to the driver's door and grabbed the handle to try and stop him driving off. Lal was revving the engine so the constable drew his baton but as he did so Lal got the engine into gear spun the wheels and drove off up Harehills Lane, weaving across both lanes into the path of oncoming vehicles.

Miss Robinson said the officer lost sight of him but continued to follow because he could hear the noise of vehicles crashing.

He found a maroon Corsa in the side of a parked car with other damaged vehicles nearby.

The driver of that Corsa described how Lal, approaching fast, had skidded at a 45 degree angle into her car, pushing her into a parked Micra.

"Once she realised she was still alive she tried the driver's door but could not get out. Pedestrians moved the parked car so she could climb out of the passenger door."

Miss Robinson said the woman and the Fiesta driver, who had her two-year-old son in the car with her, were both taken to hospital, one with cuts and bruises, the other whiplash injuries.

Two men in a van struck by Lal's vehicle also suffered some injury and the road had to be closed to allow officers to deal with the situation.

Lal was arrested nearby, standing by a shop door, shaking, distressed and smelling of alcohol.

A breath test later showed a reading of 135 microgrammes, the limit being 35. He said had drunk around three to four pints of Stella lager and had no recollection of hitting cars.

Lal, 29, of Carr Manor Avenue, Moortown, Leeds, admitted dangerous driving and driving over the limit. He was banned from driving for

three years in addition to the jail term.

Michael Walsh, representing him, had urged the judge to impose a suspended jail term.

Judge Macgill accepted Lal was a hard-working man of previous good character, who suffered domestic problems and redundancy but the jail term had to be immediate to mark the severity of what he had done, driving a lethal weapon with that amount of alcohol in his system.