A 30-year-old businesswoman caught driving with drug levels eight times above the legal limit has avoided an immediate prison sentence.
Lucy Newall, of Southdene in Kirkby, received five drug-driving convictions after police stopped and arrested her on multiple occasions over the past three years.
The care company manager had been facing 12 weeks behind bars after admitting being in charge of a vehicle while under the influence of drugs.
However, sentencing her at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court on September 3, District Judge Mary Dowrick chose not to jail Newall. Instead, she imposed a 12-month community order requiring her to complete 15 rehabilitation activity days.
The court was told Newall began using the Class B drug, which can cost as little as £2 a gram, during an abusive relationship. Her addiction, magistrates heard, had become so severe at points that it left her bed-bound.
In one instance, Newall ploughed her £30,000 Cupra SUV into a set of railings.
The first arrest was on January 3 this year, when police spotted her sitting in the driver’s seat of a 2025 Peugeot 208 with the engine running about 9.45pm.
Lucy Newall, 30, was found to be more than eight times the legal drug-driving limit after multiple police stops. She avoided jail and was handed a 12-month rehabilitation order
The care company manager, from Southdene in Kirkby, faced 12 weeks in jail after she pleaded guilty to being in charge of a vehicle while under the influence of drugs
They approached the car – parked on Leeds Street in Liverpool – and asked Newall to get out while they searched it.
Officers discovered traces of white powder on a bank card in the centre console and in a snap bag that was seized from the car.
Newall failed a roadside drug test and was taken to a police station where tests showed she had 160 micrograms of ketamine per litre of blood in her system. The legal limit is 20 micrograms.
She was arrested again on March 11, after she crashed a recently registered Cupra Formentor VZ into pedestrian railings in Kirkby.
Officers called to the scene found remnants of white powder around the car’s central console and on a £5 note rolled into a tube in the driver’s footwell.
Newall again failed a roadside drug test and was taken into custody. A blood test showed 160 micrograms of ketamine per litre of blood in her system.
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The test also showed the presence of cocaine but below the drug-drive limit.
Newall’s lawyer Elizabeth Manning said her drug-driving convictions ‘correlate with her drug addiction issues and significant life trauma that she has suffered’
The court previously heard Newall (pictured) had started using the Class B drug – which can sell for as little as £2 a gram – while in an abusive relationship
Details of Newall’s previous drug-driving convictions were not disclosed during the hearing. But her lawyer Elizabeth Manning said: ‘They correlate with her drug addiction issues and significant life trauma that she has suffered.’
She told the judge: ‘She was in a traumatic abusive relationship and sought solace in ketamine use. But it spiralled out of control.
‘She did manage at one stage to get it in hand but following the loss of both grandmothers she found herself in the cycle as before, this time more serious, resulting in health problems which meant she was out of work.
‘She is really suffering as a result and has problems with her bladder at the moment. Sometimes she is able to go about her business. Other days, she is bed bound due to the pain and she is seeking help with that.
‘She has put herself in rehab before but has struggled again and she does not want to be in this position. She does not want to be before the court.
‘She desperately wants to be back in work in the care sector.’
District Judge Mary Dowrick told Newall: ‘I have heard about the trauma you have suffered, more recently but also in childhood.
‘I know you have health issues and I can take this into account. More importantly, you pleaded guilty at the first occasion in court and because of these mitigating factors I do think I can step back from a custodial sentence.’
Ketamine is soaring in popularity as an illegal party drug, new figures show, as police seize more of it than amphetamines.
Home Office figures reveal forces recorded 1,845 offences of possessing the veterinary tranquilliser in 2025-26, up 151 per cent from 735 in 2020-21.
By comparison, amphetamine possession has more than halved over the same five years, falling from 2,576 offences to 1,209.
The data will intensify concerns over ketamine becoming a dominant drug among young people despite grave risks – with a single ‘hit’ costing less than a pint of beer.