A DRUG driver told magistrates that "drink drivers kill far more people than stoned people" after admitting nearly causing a head-on collision by overtaking with her two children as passengers.

Amy Elizabeth Morley, aged 37, from Falmouth appeared at Truro Magistrates' Court last week and pleaded guilty to drug driving and driving without due care and attention on March 17 at Antron Hill in Mabe Burnthouse.

However, despite pleading guilty, Morley tried to justify her bad driving and claimed that drug drivers were not nearly as bad as drink drivers.

Magistrates were told that on March 17 at 3.30pm two officers were in the lay-by at the top of Antron Hill doing a check on a different person when they heard Morley's green Peugeot go past them towards the village. They watched it overtake a car travelling the same direction but there was a car travelling in the opposite direction.

"That car had to use its horn and brake heavily to avoid a collision," the prosecutor told the court. "She [Morley] made no visible attempt to brake, continued the overtake and rejoined the appropriate side of the carriageway."

The prosecutor said that if the other car had not applied the brakes, the police officers said, there would have been a crash and she could have chosen not to completely overtake.

The police followed her and stopped the car. When they looked inside they saw a 16-year-old in the passenger seat and a nine-year-old, who were her children.

They said she was compliant but checks found she had lost her licence after a totting disqualification. A breath test proved zero for alcohol but a saliva swab proved positive for cannabis.

She told police she had smoked cannabis the night before and she was arrested. A test at the station found that she had 7.0 microgrammes of cannabis in her system while the limit is two.

Morley told the court she'd been driving for 20 years but only used the car to take the children to and from school in Camborne.

She said she wasn't speeding and she overtook because her daughter needed the toilet and she was taking her to Asda. She said she wouldn't drive recklessly with her two children in the car.

After hearing her testimony the chair of the magistrates said: "We are hearing why you did it, but we are not hearing an understanding of the danger that you put your children in with that manoeuvre."

Morley replied: "Well overtaking isn't an illegal manoeuvre" but magistrates warned that that appeared to say because it wasn't an illegal manoeuvre that what she had done was OK but she could have had a head-on collision.

However she claimed she was in control of the situation and claimed the other car beeped to warn her of the police presence.

Magistrates reminded her that she had already pleaded guilty and there had to be an understanding of that and how she would address her driving in future but she didn't seem to be taking responsibility for that manoeuvre. Morley claimed she was the victim in this.

The court heard she had a number of driving convictions which led to her disqualification from driving.

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Adjourning the case for a pre-sentence report, the chair of the bench told Morley that she does have to take responsibility for her actions. It was at this point Morley told the bench "Well drink drivers kill far more people than stoned people, just saying."

The chair of the bench told her it was: "exactly comments like this that has triggered what they we are going to do now." She [Morley] was still not addressing the fact it was her guilt and she was still saying it was OK and drunk drivers were far worse.

They adjourned the case until November 17 for a pre-sentence report by the probation service to address whatever issues she had going on and in the meantime imposed an interim disqualification for six months or until she was sentenced.