A bar worker who drove for several miles down a motorway with a wheel missing following a drunken crash has been spared jail.
Jenni Smyth, 26, downed bottles of Smirnoff Ice and Jagerbombs during her shift in a nightclub before getting behind the wheel and smashing into a parked vehicle.
Liverpool Crown Court heard an off-duty police officer later spotted Smyth driving with sparks flying from the car’s rim.
Her colleagues later found the car parked in a bus lane with its front bumper and front off-side wheel missing. Drag marks were also found leading from the motorway.
Police attended Smyth's home on the same street and were told by her sister she was not home, before her mother told the officers her daughter was asleep in her bedroom, the Liverpool Echo reported.
Officers noted Smyth "smelled of alcohol and was slurring her words" and had a bump on her head which she claimed happened when she "banged it on her sister's door".
She was taken to Arrowe Park Hospital, where the officers overheard her confessing to staff she had actually banged it on the steering wheel when she crashed her car.
When breathalysed shortly before 10.30am the driver was found to have 60micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of breath - the legal limit being 35.
She later confessed she had downed two Smirnoff Ice and two Jagerbombs while working at the Beach nightclub in Birkenhead that night.
Smyth had then dropped her friends home in the Woodchurch area, and claimed to have no recollection of the collision.
She was previously banned from driving for a year and fined £280 in November 2019 after being convicted of drink driving.
John Weate, defending, told the court his client's father had been shot and killed when she was seven and her uncle was later stabbed to death.
He said this "had an untold effect on her life", but Smyth is now in a new job and "has done exceptionally well".
Mr Weate added: "There is to be no lame or limp excuse put forward on behalf of this defendant.
“While she acted in an irresponsible way on the night in question, she has in fact acted in a proper way as far as these court proceedings are concerned.
"She is hard-working, intelligent, well thought of and caring - she has many positive attributes to her character. She is motivated and committed in life."
Smyth admitted dangerous driving, failing to stop after an accident and drink driving. She was handed a three-month imprisonment suspended for 18 months and banned from driving for three years.
Sentencing, Recorder Richard Leiper KC said: "The circumstances of these offences are highly unusual. There can be no doubt given the state of your vehicle that it was dangerous for you to have been driving it.
"The bad driving took place over a prolonged period. There appears to have been a deliberate disregard for the safety of others and a real risk of personal injury, which fortuitously did not occur.
"It is significantly aggravated by the fact that you were driving while over the alcohol limit, which clearly impede your ability to understand what was happening."
"The impact of these events upon you is difficult to understate. I would have had little sympathy for someone who has not taken the lesson of their previous conviction to change their life.
"However, I have been persuaded that this is a case where I should suspend the sentence given the extent of events in your background."
Smyth cried in the dock as she was sentenced, then thanked the judge and hugged relatives as she left the courtroom.
She was also handed a rehabilitation activity requirement of up to 25 days and was told she must pass an extended retest and pay a victim surcharge.
