No jail for drug driver who left friend brain damaged in crash

A driver from the Black Country who crashed a car after taking alcohol and ecstasy, leaving his friend with lasting brain damage, has walked free from court.

Adam Butler, aged 26, decided his friend Dean Fryer was too drunk to drive his own car and sat behind the wheel himself, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

But Butler reached speeds of up to 85mph on roads near Featherstone, in South Staffordshire, before crashing and flipping the car on Cat and Kittens Lane at the junction with Greenfield Lane.

Mr Fryer and a female passenger had to be cut free from the wreckage and were taken to hospital.

He spent six weeks in intensive care with life-threatening injuries.

Sentencing Butler to a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, Recorder Anthony Warner told him: "It was reckless and stupid of you to get behind the wheel while you were in that state.

"You put yourself and others who encountered you at risk of danger and injury, and that is what happened.

Blondelle Thompson, prosecuting, said debris from the Honda Civic was strewn across the road and Butler was trying to help his friend from the mangled car when emergency services arrived, just after 8pm on April 25 last year.

Serious

The court heard how Mr Fryer was still recovering from serious injuries to his head and body and has been left with a range of speech and movement difficulties.

She told the court that Butler, of Snowden Way, Oxley, had admitted taking an ecstasy tablet and gave a breath test reading of 57 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood - the legal drink-drive limit is 35 micrograms.

Stephen Blower, defending, said: "He finds it absolutely devastating, not least because the man who was badly hurt was a close friend.

"He seldom goes to sleep at night without reliving this accident.

"He also suffers flashbacks."

Butler, who pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, driving over the legal blood alcohol limit and possessing ecstasy, was ordered to pay £1,200 costs, complete 180 hours' unpaid work, given a six-month curfew, and disqualified from driving for two years.

By Laura Blyth