A drink driver who rammed a police car in a desperate attempt to avoid arrest after downing six pints of lager has narrowly avoided an immediate prison sentence.

Melissa Moore was spotted walking towards her car parked outside a Redcar nightspot but changed her mind when she saw a police car in the area.

Teesside Crown Court heard how the officer suspected she would return to her car so parked up nearby and didn’t have to wait long before she passed him in her Ford Focus in the early hours of January 22.

When the officer tried to pull her over the mother-of-five sped away from the scene and reached speeds in excess of 77mph in a 50 zone before losing control of the car in the icy conditions and crashing into a lamppost.

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The 36-year-old then reversed her car into the police car as the officer tried to block her in before speeding off again.

The Northern Echo: The Deck nightclub in RedcarThe Deck nightclub in Redcar (Image: Google)

Eventually, she was brought to a shuddering halt when an armed response unit deployed a Stinger and she was arrested after officers were forced to drag her out of the car.

When she was breathalysed, she was found to be more than twice the legal limit for driving but refused to give a blood sample when she was taken to the police station.

The officer in the car the defendant rammed suffered whiplash as a result on the incident and the vehicle required £2,697.20 worth of repairs.

The Northern Echo: A police StingerA police Stinger

Moore, of Sunniside, Coulby Newham, Middlesbrough, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and failing to provide a specimen for analysis.

Simon Walker, mitigating, said his client panicked when she drove off at speed and urged the judge to spare her immediate custody as she is a single-mother with four dependent children.

“She did something that she had never done before,” he added. “If she could apologise to the officer for her nonsensical behaviour she would.”

Judge Paul Watson KC passed a suspended prison sentence for Moore after telling her she wouldn’t have been in Crown Court if she had just pulled over at the start.

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He said: “You were jeopardising your own life and that of other people by driving in a wholly reckless manner.

“I don’t want it thought that the fact you have four dependent children as a get out of jail free card to stop you being sentenced immediately for this appalling driving.”

Moore was given an eight-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months and banned from driving for 18-months.

She was also ordered to attend 30 rehabilitation activity requirement days and a 60-day alcohol abstinence programme.