Businesswoman Lucy Newall has avoided jail after being convicted of drug-driving offences, having been found with ketamine levels eight times above the legal limit during one of two arrests in Liverpool.
The 30-year-old, who ran a care company, was stopped twice within two months and was found to have 160 micrograms of ketamine per litre of blood on both occasions. The legal limit is 20 micrograms.
Newall was first arrested on January 3 after officers found her sitting in the driver’s seat of a Peugeot 208 with the engine running. A bank card bearing traces of white powder and a snap bag were discovered inside the vehicle.
She was arrested again on March 11 after crashing a Cupra Formentor into pedestrian railings. Police found further traces of white powder around the centre console and on a £5 note rolled into a tube in the driver’s footwell.
Newall failed a roadside drugs test and was taken into custody for a blood test. The analysis showed ketamine at eight times the permitted level, while cocaine was also detected but below the legal drug-driving threshold.
She admitted being in charge of a vehicle while unfit through drugs and driving with a specified controlled drug above the legal limit. The court also heard that she had five previous drug-driving convictions.
Her barrister, Elizabeth Manning, said the earlier convictions were linked to addiction and “significant life trauma”. She told Liverpool Magistrates’ Court that Newall had turned to ketamine after an abusive relationship and that her use had later spiralled.
The court heard that the addiction had caused serious bladder problems and severe pain, leaving Newall unable to work and sometimes confined to bed. She had previously tried rehabilitation but had struggled to remain free from the drug.
District Judge Mary Dowrick imposed a 12-month community order with a nine-month drug rehabilitation requirement and 15 days of rehabilitation activity. Newall was also fined £100, ordered to pay costs and a surcharge, and banned from driving for five years.
The judge said Newall’s guilty pleas, health problems and the trauma she had experienced meant she could step back from imposing a custodial sentence.
