Sutton driver was drunk on cider when head-on crash seriously injured two young women

Richard Miller was travelling at 60mph on Main Road, Ravenshead, when he lost control on a sharp bend and collided with a Ford Focus at 6.15pm on May 17 last year.

Miller’s Ford Galaxy was halfway across the solid white line and made no attempt to brake or swerve, said Matthew Hayes, prosecuting.

Both cars went up into the air and the impact span the Focus around 360 degrees and the Galaxy by 180 degrees.

"All I can say is that I am sorry," Miller told the passenger as she crawled out of the wreckage, thinking her partner was dead. And when she asked him if he had been texting or was drunk, he replied: "I'm sorry, I can't answer that," and walked off.

Miller told police he only drank one beer but a blood test showed he was two-and-a-half times over the legal limit.

The passenger suffered seven fractured ribs, a bleed on her bowel and severe nerve damage. The driver sustained a bleed on her brain and a broken shoulder. She still suffers confusion and headaches.

The women described the extreme pain and psychological harm they suffered and said their lives were ruined.

Nottingham Crown Court heard Miller received a suspended prison sentence, and a 29-month driving ban, for drink-driving in October 2017.

Lauren Manuel, mitigating, described him as a “hard-working” father-of-three who set up a residential home for adults with learning disabilities. But work pressures drove him to alcohol and he joined AA.

Following the accidental death of a service user in 2022 he began drinking secretly again. Earlier on May 17 he passed out in his car after drinking “copious quantities of cider”.

Six days after the accident he tried to commit suicide as “he felt he could no longer live with himself”.

Miller, 55, of Springwood View Close, Sutton, admitted drink-driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving last December.

On Wednesday, Recorder Stuart Sprawson told him he “deliberately ignored the rules of the road” and called him a menace.

Miller received 14 months in prison. He was banned from driving for five years and seven months.