Drunk woman ran red lights, smashed into Mini with five-year-old in car during police chase

A drunk woman who sped away from police with a five-year-old girl in the car, smashing into a Mini Cooper and trapping its occupants inside has been jailed for six months.

Sky Murphy was drunk when she ran two red lights in Alice Springs in 2018.

A DRUNK woman who sped away from police with a five-year-old girl in the car, smashing into a Mini Cooper and trapping its occupants inside has been jailed for six months.

Sky Murphy, 24, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court to dangerous driving in a police pursuit, recklessly endangering harm and a string of traffic offences following the chase in March 2018.

The court heard Murphy was on a suspended sentence for driving while disqualified when she got drunk on Jim Beam and VB and drove into Alice Springs from Morris Soak Camp with the unrestrained five-year-old in the car.

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At about 5.30pm a police officer spotted Murphy speeding and gave chase, activating her lights and sirens after seeing Murphy drifting across the road and “coming dangerously close” to hitting the gutter.

The officer abandoned the pursuit and Murphy sped off, driving through two red lights before T-boning the Mini at the corner of Stott Tce and Hartley St, causing it to spin 90 degrees.

The occupants of the Mini had to be extracted from the vehicle by firefighters but “fortunately” only sustained minor injuries.

The five-year-old girl and another passenger “scrambled” out of Murphy’s car and she again sped off, later abandoning the vehicle.

In suspending Murphy’s two-year and nine-month jail sentence after six months, Justice Peter Barr noted she had started drinking at 13, with her alcohol abuse escalating after her mother was murdered by her partner in 2014.

“She was stomped and kicked to death, she had been a victim of serious violence at the hands of her partner for many years before her death,” he said.

“One of your referees has described the events around your mother’s murder as, in your case, the most horrific induction into adulthood.”

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Justice Barr said Murphy had now sought help for her drinking and accepted full responsibility for her actions, saying she had “grown a lot” and would comply with the conditions of a suspended sentence this time around.

“In sentencing you, I must bear in mind that your offending was serious and that things could have ended very badly for (the five-year-old girl), for you and for the occupants of the Mini Cooper,” he said.

“I am sure that you now realise what a dangerous situation you created for so many people.”

Murphy will be banned from drinking for two years and three months after her release.