WHEN Lee Botham decided to ''show-off'' to friends in his father's high-powered Jaguar, there were no half-measures, a court heard today.

With one of his passengers urging restraint Botham, 23, wound the XJ6 up to

the 100 mph mark on a country lane and was still doing over 80 when he entered the village of Cattal, near Knaresborough where he smashed into a stone wall, prosecutor Sarah Tyrer told Harrogate magistrates.

A door was ripped off in the impact and back-seat passenger David Nicholson was flung from the wreck into the rubble where he was found with serious head and neck injuries.

Mrs Tyrer said Botham had borrowed the car from his father and had gone on the town in Harrogate and Knaresborough with Alistair Watson, a friend from university days. They had drunk two or three pints of lager in Harrogate and had a meal and two or three more pints in Knaresborough before driving to the Huntsman Inn near Cattal to meet Mr Nicholson who lived in the village.

Botham had two more pints before the three men left with Botham at the wheel determined to show off to his friends, driving at excessive speeds and reaching 100mph if not more on a two-mile straight stretch.

Mrs Tyrer said Mr Watson, who was in the front, was to tell police: ''I felt very nervous and apprehensive at the speed and when I saw warning signs I was trying to make Lee slow down.

''I felt afraid. We were going out of control. I felt the back end of the car go as we were going into a left hand bend.''

Mr Watson said the car had ''hit something hard'' and the driver's door had been torn off. ''I looked in the back but Dave wasn't there. I feared the worst.''

Mrs Tyrer said Mr Nicholson had been found among the rubble of the wall just as he was coming round. He had been thrown out of the car when it went out of control and received serious head and neck injuries.

Botham, of Somersall Street, Mansfield, Notts pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, being nearly twice the drink-drive limit and not having insurance. Presiding magistrate John Render adjourned the hearing for probation reports and bailed Botham until February 5. He was banned from driving in the meantime.