Ex-wife of rose firm boss in drunken death crash: Outrage as driver is spared jail for killing teacher

Francine Austin was instead sent to a psychiatric hospital after the judge heard she was depressed

She ploughed into a teacher in her £30k sports car, killing her and the dog she was walking

The ex-wife of the boss of a major rose breeding firm killed a teacher while drunk at the wheel – but was spared jail after a judge heard she suffered from depression.

Francine Austin, 54, ploughed her Audi convertible into Brenda Wilson, 62, killing the primary school teacher instantly.

She also hit Deirdre McFadden, 48, who was walking her dog with Mrs Wilson, after her car left the road and 'headed directly towards the pavement'.

Spared jail: Francine Austin (left) ploughed her Audi convertible into Brenda Wilson, 62, killing the primary school teacher instantly

Mrs McFadden escaped with arm injuries. Her dog was killed.

Austin, whose ex-husband David runs David Austin Roses, admitted causing death by careless driving while over the legal alcohol limit.

Judge John Maxwell said he would have normally sentenced her to a three-year prison term.

But despite 'considerable reservations' he felt he had 'no alternative' but to make an indeterminate hospital order, based on psychiatric reports.

The decision to spare Austin jail was greeted with outrage by Mrs Wilson's family. Speaking outside the court, Mrs Wilson's son Edward Davies said the sentence was an 'absolute disgrace'.

He added: 'She's got submissions from two psychiatrists saying that she shouldn't go to prison, we dispute what they're saying.

'I think she should serve the full prison sentence after the doctors let her out, but she'll probably only do a year in the hospital and be let out. If you've got money you can pay for expensive psychiatric reports. Money talks.'

Stafford Crown Court heard Austin had drunk four glasses of wine the night before taking her daughter to a music festival last August.

But she was still more than one and a half times the legal alcohol limit when she crashed on the way back.

Mrs Wilson was walking with Mrs McFadden, and her dog on a pavement beside the country road at Stourton, South Staffordshire.

Robert Price, prosecuting, said: 'A witness noticed that the Audi was travelling up its correct side of the road but didn't appear to be travelling the natural course of road.

'He believed that there was something wrong with the way in which the car was being manoeuvred. It veered from its natural course, headed directly towards the pavement as if it was what the driver intended.'

When police breathalysed Austin, a mother of three, she had 54mg of alcohol per 100ml of breath – well over the legal limit of 35mg.

Andrew Fisher QC, defending, said Austin was on anti-depressants at the time and had recently undergone a three-month spell in a psychiatric hospital.

He added: 'She is ill, and as with any offender before any court they have to be dealt with within the regime that relates to that.'

Austin was sent to the independent Woodbourne Priory hospital in Birmingham, which specialises in treating mental health problems. Judge Maxwell told her: 'The position is that you should not go to prison but that you should be detained in a mental hospital.

'I have considerable reservations about that because you are mentally ill but I look at the trauma other people have suffered and I don't know that makes them mentally ill.

'Why should your mental suffering make so much difference to the case?

'You do not deserve leniency, but I feel I really have no alternative but to make a hospital order.'