Drink-driving lap-dancer jailed for killing woman after she hit car at 95mph - while sending a text

A lapdancer who killed another driver after speeding down a motorway at 95mph while talking on a mobile phone was jailed for six years yesterday.

Sarah Taylor had been working in a strip club and was twice over the legal drink-drive limit.

She ploughed into a car that had come to a halt in the fast lane of the M61 after it spun out of control and swerved from lane to lane before hitting the central reservation barrier.

Melanie Lee was trying to get out of the convertible BMW Mini when she was hit by Taylor.

The 35-year-old pensions manager with accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers suffered horrendous injuries and was pronounced dead in hospital.

Taylor, 23, admitted causing death by dangerous driving and driving with excess alcohol.

Preston Crown Court heard that the accident happened just after midnight on September 30 last year when Miss Lee, from Heaton Park, Manchester, was travelling south on the M61 near Brindle, Lancashire.

The doctor's daughter had been returning from a visit to her parents in Glasgow.

Other drivers stopped and went to help Miss Lee, who was trying to climb out of the window of her damaged car.

Taylor, who had been working as a lapdancer in Blackpool, was trying to ring her brother to say she would be late home when her Fiat Stilo ploughed into the stationary Mini head-on.

Miss Lee was sent flying and suffered massive internal injuries.

Witnesses said the impact was so severe it sounded like a bomb had gone off.

The court heard that the first thing Taylor, of Blackley, Manchester, said after the collision was: 'I was on my phone. It was all my fault. I took my eyes off the road.'

Duncan Birrell, prosecuting, said: 'She did not apply the brakes before impact. It appears she did not see the car before colliding with it.'

Taylor, who escaped injury, gave a breath sample which showed she was more than twice the legal drink-drive limit.

Ian McMeekin, defending, said she was supplementing her income as a medical receptionist by lapdancing.

Taylor, who was described as having genuine remorse, sobbed in the dock during the case.

Judge Norman Wright told her: 'This was a grotesque piece of driving. You snuffed out the life of a woman, someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone's aunt, someone's sister-in-law, someone's best friend.

'The light that Melanie shed in their lives has now gone forever. It can never be replaced. It will be forever missed.'