A REPEAT drugs driver who abandoned her car after hitting a drystone wall in Kildwick has been given a community sentence.

Lyndsay Smith, 40, went home to Silsden where she smoked crack cocaine after colliding with the wall and road sign in Priest Bank Road during the afternoon of January 21, heard Skipton Magistrates Court on Tuesday.

Police, called to the scene of an accident, found the car and went to Smith’s home, who was the registered keeper of the vehicle.

A drugs test showed both cocaine and the cocaine by product, benzoylecgonine, with Smith claiming she had taken the drug after driving.

She was taken to the police station for a blood test which later revealed she had 25 microgrammes of cocaine in one litre of blood, and 200 microgrammes of benzoylecgonine. The legal limit for cocaine is ten, and 50 for the by-product.

Smith, who originally denied two counts of drugs driving and one of failing to stop after an accident and giving her details, changed her pleas to guilty on the day of trial.

She had an earlier conviction for drugs driving in February for an offence carried out in August last year.

The court heard in mitigation that Smith was adamant that she had taken the drug after the incident and an independent report had been commissioned but it had been inconclusive, so she had decided to take a ‘pragmatic’ view and had changed her pleas.

Smith, of St John’s Street, was given a nine month community order with up to 15 rehabilitation requirement days to tackle mental health issues and drugs misuse. She was also banned from driving for 24 months and ordered to pay a surcharge of £85.