THE £185 fine handed out to a drink driver who left a pensioner with serious injuries after knocking her down is a disgrace.

Andrew Butcher was almost twice the legal alcohol limit when his van hit Patricia Kemp on a zebra crossing in Nelson.

But despite Miss Kemp spending more than a week in hospital and still suffering flashbacks, magistrates just fined Butcher and banned him for 20 months.

Miss Kemp called the sentence ‘disgusting’ and Pendle MP Gordon Prentice said that he was ‘astonished’ that the courts had been so lenient.

They are absolutely right. Other offenders are regularly handed stiffer sentences for much lesser offences.

Only this week the Lancashire Telegraph featured a report of a man being fined £300 after admitting common assault by pushing someone else.

The sentence was also condemned by road safety group Brake who said courts needed to get tough on this type of offence.

It is well documented that the prisons are already full.

But if the courts fail to hand out tougher sentences, they run the risk of the public losing faith in the justice system.

The punishment has to be seen to fit the crime and in this case that has definitely not been done.