Drink-driving crash youth jailed

A teenager has been sentenced to 12 months in a young offenders' institute after pleading guilty to dangerous driving while drunk and disqualified.

Jacob McKay, 18, of Stephenson Way, Corby, also received a concurrent 12-month sentence for affray.

He admitted attacking a man in Corby, after hearing of the death of a friend, Northampton Crown Court heard.

McKay had crashed his car at Desborough in Northamptonshire and was later caught on CCTV attacking a man.

McKay, already disqualified, was driving behind the friend in July when he overtook a car, losing control and swerving onto a verge, the court heard.

The friend continued on and was killed in a crash while McKay went on a drinking spree.

Taste of custody

He later heard that his friend had been killed and went on to attack a man who did not want to be identified, the court was told.

Sentencing McKay, Judge Peter Morrell warned of the dangers of drink-driving.

He said: "It's very sad to see an 18-year-old lad like you standing in the dock of a Crown Court.

"You have got big problems and your obvious problem is drink. You are a menace at the moment - you drink and you drive.

"People who drink and drive end up killing people. They do not mean to but they do.

"That's the course that you are on and it's up to you whether you stay on that course or whether you change."

He said he was passing a custodial sentence to give McKay a "taste of what it is like".

The teenager was also disqualified from driving for three years.