A glamorous businesswoman found to be eight times the legal drug-driving limit after being stopped by police multiple times has avoided jail.
Lucy Newall, 30, was slapped with five drug-driving convictions after she was pulled over and subsequently arrested multiple times in the last three years.
The care company manager, from Southdene in Kirkby, faced 12 weeks jail after she pleaded guilty to being in charge of a vehicle fkwhile under the influence of drugs.
But the businesswoman was spared jail by District Judge Mary Dowrick during sentencing in Liverpool Magistrates' Court on September 3.
She was ordered to complete 15 rehabilitation activity days as part of a 12-month community order after the court heard her addiction had at times left her bed-bound.
The court previously heard Newall had started using the Class B drug - which can sell for as little as £2 a gram - while in an abusive relationship.
During arrests in January and March, attending officers found traces of suspicious white powder in the car - once on a bank card and then on a rolled-up £5 note.
In one instance, Newall ploughed her £30,000 Cupra SUV into a set of railings.
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 Kirby, faced 12 weeks in jail after she pleaded guilty to being in charge of a vehicle while under the influence of drugs
The first arrest was on January 3, when police spotted her sitting in the driver's seat of a 2025 Peugeot 208 with the engine running about 9.45pm.
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 Kirby.
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 160mcg of ketamine per litre of blood in her system. 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.