A teaching assistant has been jailed for causing devastating injuries to her three passengers when she crashed while driving 'like a lunatic' on a country road.
Emma Walker was going at twice the speed limit before the accident and showing off by deliberately swerving onto the wrong side of the road and dancing in her seat to music.
She ignored pleas by her passengers to slow down and took her hands off the wheel of her Peugeot car to change the music on her phone during her journey from South Wales to Devon.
Walker, aged 22, was taking three friends on a camping trip to Honiton when she crashed on the outskirts of Cullompton in July last year.
Her car was crushed when she too a corner in a 30 mph zone at around 60 mph and veered onto the wrongs side of the road where she crashed head on into a passing car.
It rebounded off and hit a concrete post and was so badly damaged the four occupants had to be but out by firefighters and two flown to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth by air ambulance.
Front seat passenger Rebecca Nott, aged 20, almost died. She spent five months in hospital with severe brain injuries which have left her permanently injured and with restricted eyesight.
She had been due to start a new job as a skating instructor in Cardiff two days alter but how walks with a limp after breaking her hip, thigh, and ankle and suffering facial injuries and a chipped spine.
Back seat passenger MacAuley Eccles, aged 17, was a triallist for the Welsh Under 18 basketball team but has been forced to abandon his dreams of becoming a professional player.
He was left with one leg shorter than the other after suffering horrific injuries including a dislocated hip. He spent six weeks in hospital and still needs further surgery.
The other back seat passenger Peter Bebb, aged 26, suffered a broken neck and ruptured spleen. He still has restricted movement of his head and is frightened to get back into a car.
Walker, of Llys Gwyn, Bridgend, South Wales, admitted three offences of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and was jailed for 16 months by Judge Francis Gilbert, QC, at Exeter Crown Court.
The judge told her:"You were driving, according to the police, at a minimum of 55 mph in a 30 mph zone and ended up on the opposite carriageway where you hit another car head on and a concrete pillar.
"Your car was unrecognizable and the roof had to be removed to get all four people out of the vehicle.
"The way in which you drove before the accident was clearly very irresponsible and dangerous. You were in high spirits and one of the occupants described you swerving deliberately onto the other side of the road.
"A witness who saw you shortly before the accident said you were driving like a bloody lunatic and you were using your mobile phone, probably not to make calls but to change the music.
"You were dancing in your seat to the music and taking both hands off the steering wheel and that was extremely irresponsible and dangerous. The result was devastating to your three passengers."
Mr David Bowen, prosecuting, said the crash happened near the Mole Valley Farmers shop on the A 373 on the way out of Cullompton on the road to Honiton.
Walker had driven from South Wales for a weekend camping trip with her friends near Honiton and they had stocked up with food and supplies from the Tesco in Cullompton shortly before the accident.
He said witnesses, including a local farmer, reckoned the car was going at between 60 and 70 mph and police experts said its speed at impact was at least 55 mph.
Miss Nott and Mr Eccles were airlifted to Derriford while Mr Bebb and Walker were taken to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. She was the only one who was not seriously injured.
Mr Bowen said:"Miss Nott suffered a brain injury and for a time it was touch and go whether she would survive."
Miss Cora Sorensen, defending, said Walker has a caring job as an assistant at a special school in Wales and had a clean driving record before the crash.
She said:"This devastating incident has had an enormous effect on her. She is filled with remorse and feels she doesn't have the right to feel happy any more because of what she has done.
"She feels the enormity of her guilt, especially as she came out of the incident relatively unscathed in comparison to the effects on the other passengers."
