Drink-driver who left two women paralysed is let off curfew to go on stag do

A drink-driver who left two young mothers with life-changing injuries after a high speed car crash persuaded magistrates to lift his curfew so he could attend a friend's stag party in Portugal.

Jon Morton, a 32-year-old bouncer who was subsequently convicted of possessing animal and child pornography, was allowed to remove his electronic tag so he could go on holiday.

Last year, he left Amy Baxter, 28, and her friend Hayley Jones, 32, with horrific injuries following an alcohol-fuelled car crash.

The two women had accepted a lift from Morton but he escaped with cuts, Miss Baxter suffered a traumatic brain injury, broken neck and broken spine.

She had half her skull removed and is still in Salford Royal Hospital 16 months after the collision. She is expected to need 24-hour care for life.

Miss Baxter, a case worker for the Child Support Agency, has not seen her children, aged eight and ten, for seven months because her head injuries are too distressing.

Miss Jones, who broke her neck and back, is paralysed from the chest down.

In March, Morton pleaded guilty to drink-driving and driving without due care and attention and was sentenced to a three-year driving ban, a fine and a 20-week overnight curfew.

Three weeks later, he returned to Bolton magistrates' court and asked for the ban to be lifted so he could attend the stag party, which he had pre-booked. The court agreed and he was allowed to jet off in July.

The victims, their families and an MP demanded that changes are made to sentencing guidelines in light of the case.

Miss Baxter's mother Pauline Baxter, 46, and Tory MP Jake Berry have launched a campaign to introduce a new driving offence of causing serious injury by drink-driving or careless driving.

Currently there is only a separate offence of causing serious injury by driving dangerously, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

“For the magistrates to allow this creature off his tag so he can go on holiday while my daughter and her friend were in hospital is revolting,” Mrs Baxter, from Lancashire, who is studying criminology at Salford University, told the Daily Maill.

"It was sickening. Amy can't go on holiday, her children can't go on holiday, we can't go on holiday, but this criminal is allowed to fly off to the beach when he should have been serving his punishment. That's not justice."

Mr Berry, who plans to raise the issue with Prime Minister David Cameron, said it is "absolutely disgusting" that Morton was allowed to go on holiday.

"What sort of punishment is that?" he asked. "If he had been in prison he wouldn't have been allowed out just because he had already booked a stag do. It's crazy.

"It is sentencing practice like this that really undermines people's faith in the justice system."

Miss Jones, from Cheshire, said that Morton was making a mockery of the law.

“The leniency is a joke,” she said. “It's disgraceful that he was allowed to go on holiday when I'm still suffering from my injuries.”

The former actress, who was planning to train as a dental hygienist, added: "My life is ruined. I'm never going to be able to walk again, I can't move my fingers, I am in agony all the time."

The crash took place at 1am on August 3 last year on the M61 near Manchester. Morton, from Bolton, had been drinking and his BMW crashed through a barrier.

In September, Morton was fined £500 after police found animal pornography and indecent images of a child on his mobile phone, which they checked after the crash.

He told the Daily Mail: “The curfew started at 7pm and sometimes because of work I didn't get home before then.

"I had to go back to court to change the curfew so I could continue with work and that's when I also mentioned the stag do.

"But I got extra time put on because of the stag do. I told them I would have taken a custodial sentence because of what happened but they decided not to.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "Our sympathies are with Amy Baxter and her family for being the blameless victims in this tragic case. Sentences are given by the independent judiciary and are based on the full facts of each case."