A drug driver from Melksham won’t be prosecuted over a near-fatal crash.
Mandy Sentance was driving an Audi A6 along Spa Road when a cyclist sustained life-threatening injuries in a road traffic collision on 31 May last year.
At the time, police believed that that rider of a red bicycle – a man aged in his 40s – was holding onto a moving car and being towed along.
The man is said to have lost his connection to the vehicle and fallen off, suffering significant injuries that required life-saving treatment from air ambulance medics.
The car involved reportedly left the scene, but officers soon tracked it down and located the driver – 36-year-old Sentance. She failed a DrugWipe and was arrested.
Following a thorough investigation into the circumstances of the crash by the Serious Collision Investigation Team, she was not charged with in relation to the cyclist.
However, the mum was charged with driving whilst over the prescribed limit for Benzoylecgonine – a derivative of cocaine.
A blood sample revealed she was more than four times over the legal limit of 50 micrograms of drug per litre of blood.
At Swindon Magistrates’ Court on Friday (5 January), Sentance, of Tedder Gardens, Bowerhill, pleaded guilty to the offence.
She was handed a 16-month driving ban and told to pay a £120 fine and £50 costs.
The injured cyclist was “stable and now breathing on his own in hospital, without the help of machines” days after the crash. There have been no further updates on this condition.
