Drink-driver stole car then collided head-on

3:49pm Thursday 16th August 2007

A man who stole a youth worker's car collided with a Mercedes coming in the opposite direction before ploughing into a bus shelter.

Magistrates heard Andrew Robert Davies, 24, was more than three times the legal drink-drive limit at the time of the incident, on Sunday afternoon.

And a witness said he was so drunk that, despite a wheel being wrenched off the axle by the impact with the shelter, Davies still tried to re-start the car so he could drive off.

Davies, of Bolton Road, Blackburn, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, taking a vehicle without consent aggravated by damage, failing to stop after an accident, driving with excess alcohol and driving without a licence and without insurance. He was committed in custody to Preston Crown Court for sentence.

Pat Bramley, prosecuting, said a woman who knew Davies through her job as a youth worker saw him drunk. She sat him in the back of her car and stopped at a shop to get him some water.

"She left the car she and left the keys in the ignition and when she returned both Davies and the car had gone," said Miss Bramley. "He was then involved in an appalling piece of driving."

She said as he drove from Darwen towards Ewood, Davies collided with a Mercedes coming in the opposite direction. A witness travelling also told how he felt scared and intimidated by way the car behind him was being driven.