A JUDGE criticised a Walkden woman for being three times over the drink-drive limit when she crashed into another car at traffic lights.

At the time, 40-year-old divorcee Joanna Mackay was already on bail for drink-driving, it was said at Manchester Magistrates Court heard.

District Judge Jonathon Finestein told her: “You were very drunk and the risk you posed to other road users was phenomenal.”

Mother-of-two Mackay, of Vickers Hall Gardens, wept as she was sentenced to 20 weeks imprisonment suspended for two years and banned from driving for three years.

She pleaded guilty to two charges of driving with excess alcohol in December and February and will have to take a re-test before she can get back her licence.

The court heard that Mackay had ploughed into a car in Little Hulton and shunted it into another vehicle.

Before the crash she had sat in her car after leaving work and drunk a bottle of apple schnapps and vodka.

Prosecutor Tina Cunnane said Mackay had already been arrested in December after another motorist reported her for driving erratically in Boothstown.

On this occasion she was more than double the limit.

Defending, James Street said she had a “severe” alcohol problem as a result of her marriage breaking down two years ago.

He added: “She was depressed and had not been taking her medication.”

Mackay will have to attend a course for drink drivers. She was ordered to pay £550 prosecution costs.