Drink drive mother gets 'light sentence'

Jennifer was a pupil at Danetre School in Daventry

A mother who killed her daughter in a car crash while drunk has been jailed for six months, but the girl's father as condemned the sentence for being too lenient.

Lynda Fullard, 31, was three times over the legal driving limit when her car skidded off a road, flipped, and hit a tree.

Her daughter, 13-year-old Jennifer, travelling in the back, was killed instantly.

Her father, Paul, walked out of Northampton Crown Court saying the sentence was too light.

Paul Fullard: sentence is too short

Judge Julian Hall admitted he was giving Fullard "an extremely light sentence".

But he said her seven-year-old son Ryan "needs his mother, as much as possible, as soon as possible".

Mr Fullard told told BBC Look East his daughter "had a great, bright future ahead of her".

The court was told that Fullard, from Daventry, drank beer and wine in three pubs on the afternoon of 31 December, 2001 before getting behind the wheel of a friend's car.

She was travelling north on the A5 near Wilton, Northamptonshire, when she lost control.

The owner of the car, Ian Elliman, 29, had been riding in the passenger seat and also failed a roadside test for drink driving.

He was fined and banned from driving for 18 months for aiding and abetting Fullard.

Lynda Fullard was also banned from driving for five years.