A drink driver who hit a mum as she pushed her baby across a road has been banned from driving.

Joan Gillespie, 36, got one-year-old Steven's pushchair out of the path of Richard Muldoon's car but was hit.

The mother-of-two suffered a broken arm, needed stitches to her face and hurt her left thigh.

Muldoon, 22, of Mary Street, Blaydon, Gateshead, drove off after the accident but surrendered to police several hours later when he had 29 mcg of alcohol in his bloodstream, below the legal limit, but because the specimen was given some time after the accident, forensic scientists did a back calculation and gave his level as 96mcg of alcohol, almost three times the legal limit, at the time of the accident.

After admitting drink-driving, failing to stop after an accident and failing to report it, Gateshead magistrates banned Muldoon from driving for two years.

He was also given a 12 month community rehabilitation plan, ordered to do 40 hours unpaid work and to pay £75 costs.

After the case, Ms Gillespie, of Tulip Close, Blaydon Bank, Gateshead, said she was pleased at the sentence and that she was taking legal advice about seeking compensation from Muldoon for her injuries.

She said: "My arm has healed but I have a lump in my leg from where the car hit me."