A single mother who left a motorcyclist needing part of his foot amputated after a hit and run was jailed for a year yesterday.

Christine Scott, who has children aged five and ten, was behind the wheel of an uninsured and unlicensed vehicle after consuming alcohol when she injured Clarke Burgess.

The 30-year-old bank worker was was led sobbing from Supreme Court to a prison van after Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves said there was no alternative but to jail her.

?To not incarcerate the defendant in this case would not only be unjust to the victim, but it would be the wrong message to those in our community who follow the practice of driving around in unlicensed and uninsured vehicles aggravated by consumption of alcohol to the impairment of their senses,? he said. ?It must be made clear to all and sundry that such behaviour not only endangers the life and limbs of innocent persons and their families but amounts to no more than a cocktail for a trip to Her Majesty?s jail.?

Mr. Justice Greaves had adjourned the case on Monday saying he was struggling to decide what to do with the defendant, having never encountered a case like it before. He had heard from Crown counsel Cindy Clarke how she struck Mr. Burgess?s Vespa bike as her car pulled out of Bishop Spencer Road onto The Glebe Road, Devonshire in the early hours of June 11, 2005. She left the scene, but Mr. Burgess, 50, from Pembroke, was helped by a member of the public. He was taken to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital where he was found to have suffered an an eight centimetre wound to his left ankle, through which the talus bone had emerged. He said he had been drinking until one hour before the collision.

A broken car registration plate found at the scene led the Police to Scott?s Peak Lane, Warwick, home where she admitted being the driver and confessed to having consumed ?a few beers?. An alco-analyser test showed her to be one-and-a-half times the drink drive limit. She said she believed the motorcycle had driven off.

At a previous court hearing, she pleaded guilty to causing actual bodily harm through reckless driving, and driving with no vehicle licence or insurance.

Reading a statement to the court about how Mr. Burgess was affected, Ms Clarke said he had been unable to attend court due to complications from his injuries. He spent two months in hospital after the crash in Bermuda and then Boston, where he had surgery to remove between half and two-thirds of his foot. He is unable to stand for long periods of time due to pain, and faces an $80,000 medical bill for which he cannot claim through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme. Ms Clarke said the victim did not want to see the mother-of-two incarcerated, but had been ?most hurt? by the fact that she had left the scene after the collision.

Scott?s lawyer, Richard Horseman, urged the judge not to jail her, saying that Mr. Burgess could still make a claim for compensation through medical insurance and that his client ? who visited he victim in hospital to apologise ? had a previously unblemished record. Scott also addressed the court, although she was so overcome by emotion that her words of remorse were virtually inaudible.

Sentencing her to a year in jail, Mr. Justice Greaves said that his decision had been a difficult one, which was why he had needed time to reflect upon it.

?In my opinion, this offence was aggravated by the defendant who was not only at the time impaired by alcohol but drove an uninsured vehicle, an unlicensed vehicle, and who did not even bother to stop to inquire about what she?d done. Instead, she fled the scene, leaving the victim lying out on the highway,? said the judge.

He added: ?Though I do feel some compassion for the defendant, who before this case had a clean record, I do not think that on the balance of events such compassion could or should outweigh the seriousness of her act and the consequences that followed.?

The judge ordered that Scott should pay a $1,000 fine for having no insurance within six months of her release, with the alternative being three months in prison, and a $750 fine for having no car licence, with an alternative of two months in custody. He banned her from driving for two years.