A young woman has been jailed after crashing on the A30 near Okehampton while swigging from a vodka bottle.

Sirida Hamill-Stewart crashed as she drove along the dual carriageway at Whiddon Down in January this year.

Exeter Magistrates’ Court heard the 22-year-old was driving her VW Golf in the early hours of the morning without any lights on. She drove on and off a grass verge and swerved between the main lanes at speeds of up to 50mph before crashing into a hedgerow and colliding with a tree.

Hamill-Stewart, of Salisbury in Wiltshire was driving down to see a friend in Devon when she crashed.

She was breath-tested three hours after the crash and registered 116 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, more than three times the legal limit 35 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath.

The court heard that she has a previous drink driving offence from 2023.

An almost empty bottle of vodka was found in a rucksack in her car and she admitted she had been drinking from it as she was driving.

The animal management college student admitted drink driving and said she downed a bottle of vodka every other day as she battled her alcohol addiction.

District Judge Stuart Smith jailed her for eight weeks, suspended for 12 months, and banned her from driving for four years.

He said she could have caused significant injuries to herself and others as she drank from the bottle along the busy and fast A30 road at night without lights on and “in that state”.

He noted that the readings the prosecution were based on were actually taken three hours after the crash after she had been treated in hospital and she would have been even more intoxicated at the time of the crash.