A MOTORIST whose dangerous driving caused a crash which left a woman with life-changing injuries faces a court hearing to determine whether the accident happened after his drink was spiked.

Dean Shakespeare, 45, has admitted his driving on the A66 at Stainmore was dangerous and it caused the collision involved.

An earlier court hearing was shown video footage that captured the moment when the defendant’s Nissan Qashqai ploughed into the back of the victim’s parked car in a layby on August 1 last year.

The woman who was in the car spent a month in hospital in an induced coma.

At Carlisle Crown Court, Shakespeare formally entered a guilty plea to an allegation of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

He also admitted that he was driving while over the prescribed limit for the drug ecstasy.

But the defendant, of South View Terrace, York, maintains he did not deliberately have the drug in his system because his drink was spiked.

When asked how the defendant believed this had occurred, defence lawyer Mark Shepherd told the court: “Essentially, he believes it would be when he was offered a drink by another person.

“He describes the circumstances of that.”

The defendant had entered his guilty pleas on the basis that he drove his car that day while knowing he was so unwell that his ability to drive would have been compromised and yet he decided to drive.

Whether or not the defendant had deliberately taken the ecstasy was a material factor that would affect the likely sentence, the court heard.

Therefore the issue would have to be decided at so-called 'trial of issue.'

Adjourning the case for a hearing on July 31, Judge Nicholas Barker told the defendant that he needed to determine whether the defendant had deliberately taken the drug before driving on August 1.

This issue would have to be determined by the court.

“There is much to be decided or considered,” said the judge. “The court needs to know whether you were driving after deliberately taking ecstasy; or were you driving simply while feeling unwell and not knowing why you were unwell.”

The judge granted the defendant bail, imposing an interim driving ban, the ultimate length of which will be decided after the trial of issue.