A P-plater who broke a woman's back while driving drunk through Canberra's north at more than double the speed limit is set to avoid spending a single day behind bars.
But a magistrate has warned Jacob Sommers he is not "free and clear", telling him she knows people who prefer a prison cell to the tough type of community-based sentence she imposed on Wednesday.
Sommers, 25, pleaded guilty last year to charges of drink-driving and culpable driving causing grievous bodily harm.
Agreed facts tendered to the ACT Magistrates Court show the Evatt man committed the offences in his Ford Falcon in March 2019.
On the night in question, he was driving the car at no less than 170km/h in an 80km/h zone when he smashed into a Hyundai Tucson at an intersection in Florey.
The force of the collision was so great that the Falcon was propelled about 88 metres through the air, while the Tucson was flung some 66 metres.
The Hyundai driver was left with broken bones in both arms, as well as fractures of the spine, left leg, pelvis and sternum. She also suffered a bruised lung, and has required multiple bouts of surgery.
In an emotive victim impact statement, read to the court at Sommers' sentencing on Wednesday, the woman said she was still in so much pain she would sometimes rather be dead.
"This accident permanently changed my physical abilities and caused serious trauma for me and my family," the woman wrote.
"Mentally, I am so tired. I want to close my eyes and sleep forever."
She detailed powerful impacts on members of her family, including the mentally ill daughter she had been driving to collect from work when the crash occurred.
The woman said her daughter was so traumatised by being left alone on the side of the road for hours that she had attempted suicide.
Her young son, who was in the car but escaped unhurt, still wakes up screaming at night because of his memories of the incident.
The victim described her husband as her hero, but said he was "not a happy man anymore" as he endured "unbelievable stress" trying to hold the family together.
Sommers' lawyer, Tanja Cobden, said the 25-year-old did not shy away from the victim's suffering or the seriousness of his offending.
"There's no reason for [his conduct] and there's no excuse," she said.
Ms Cobden said Sommers had made "the most sincere expression of remorse" by indicating guilty pleas at his very first court appearance.
Without wanting to minimise the victim's suffering, she said Sommers had also sustained severe physical and mental injuries as a result of the crash.
The court heard Sommers had been assessed as suitable for an intensive correction order, and Ms Cobden urged Magistrate Louise Taylor to impose this sort of community-based jail sentence.
Prosecutor Marcus Dyason did not oppose that submission, saying the offending clearly called for a jail term but its structure was a matter for the court.
Mr Dyason said other road users had been placed at serious risk by Sommers, who had been spotted weaving through traffic before he crashed and returned a blood-alcohol reading above the legal limit.
But the prosecutor conceded that the court should also consider Sommers' prospects for rehabilitation and his "deprived background".
Ms Taylor agreed, saying Sommers' childhood had been marred by negative events that had resulted in him moving alone into a refuge at the age of 14.
She said Sommers' moral culpability was "somewhat reduced" by that, but he still needed to be punished and his actions had to be denounced to deter others and recognise the harm done to the victim.
Describing the sentencing exercise as "difficult", Ms Taylor ultimately imposed an 18-month intensive correction order.
"That will not see you free and clear," the magistrate said.
"This is no small responsibility you are taking on."
Ms Taylor told Sommers that when she was practising as a lawyer, some of her clients had said the conditions of intensive correction orders were so onerous they would rather be locked up.
She urged the offender not to waste the opportunity to avoid time behind bars, warning that any breaches of the order would see him hauled before the Sentence Administration Board and potentially incarcerated.
The magistrate also fined Sommers $1000 and disqualified him from driving for 18 months.
