Emma Ann Millar Jones in court for dangerous driving

“The court should be merciless”: A bayside woman has faced court for dangerous driving after running a red light, almost hitting a baby in a pram and sideswiping vehicles off the road, including a car with eight passengers three years ago.

A bayside woman has faced court for dangerous driving, running a red light, almost hitting a baby in a pram and side swiping vehicles off the road, including a car with seven passengers.

A bayside woman has faced court, charged three times in the same day with dangerous driving, after having a close call with a baby in a pram and sideswiping cars off the road.

Emma Ann Millar Jones, 36, pleaded guilty in Cleveland Magistrates Court on Thursday, March 2, to three counts of dangerous operation of a vehicle.

The court heard Jones was driving on Duporth Avenue in Maroochydore on August 19 in 2020 at 10.54am when she failed to stop at a red light.

“(A witness saw) her pull out and proceed to drive through the red light through the intersection without stopping,” the police prosecutor said.

“The driver then had to perform a hard stop, normally classified as emergency stopping, to manoeuvre into the middle of the intersection to avoid striking two pedestrians and a baby being pushed in a pram, who were all crossing the designated pedestrian crossing at the time.”

Less than two hours later Jones was the cause of another dangerous driving incident in Noosa.

“A witness was driving her vehicle in the left hand lane on the Bruce Highway near the Eumundi Junction with her cruise control at 110Km/h,”the police prosecutor said.

“The witness has moved to overtake a truck when she was struck by another vehicle, which attempted to simultaneously undertake the witness and overtake the truck.

“The collision moved the victim’s vehicle to the right which caused her to take prompt action to prevent further actions from occurring.”

Five minutes later Jones was the cause of another accident, continuing on the Bruce Highway.

“The witness attempted to overtake a truck in the left hand lane and moved into the middle lane at the same time the defendant attempted to squeeze between two vehicles,” the police prosecutor said.

“She has struck the passenger side of the witness’s vehicle carrying eight people in it.

“It pushed the vehicle on the side of the road.”

The police prosecutor said her actions were extremely concerning.

“She acted in a dangerous and reckless manner,” she said.

“She showed blatant disregard and had to perform an emergency stop to avoid loss of life, including the baby in the pram.

“One vehicle had eight people in it

“The court should be merciless, she should serve a term of imprisonment.

“She is going to kill someone if the court doesn’t rein her in.”

Jones’ lawyer, Bruce Johnstone, said his client suffered from mental health issues.

“She can’t remember the incident, however her traffic history shows that during that month of august in 2020 she was out of control,” Mr Johnstone said.

“She’s schizophrenic.”

Magistrate Deborah Vasta said she needed to turn her life around.

“I’m hoping you’re going to get it together,” Ms Vasta said.

Jones was sentenced to three months jail suspended for 18 months.

She was disqualified from driving for 18 months.

She was released from custody on Thursday, March 2.