A BANNED driver who left his friends for dead in a crash while "wrecked" on a cocktail of drugs and alcohol has been sent to jail.

Christopher Crook clambered past the lifeless body of a 16-year-old friend who had suffered massive head injuries to flee the scene.

Crook, 19, had been drinking all night on May 31 and taken at least four ecstasy tablets as well as cannabis when he got behind the wheel of his mother's Peugeot 205 at 4.30am.

He was banned from the road, had no insurance and was not allowed to drive the car, which was off the road for repairs. Colin Meeke, prosecuting, said: "He went down Abbey View Road, Wickdown Avenue, Moredon Road and Purton Road before he lost control, left the road going over a 40 metre grass verge, the car rotating about its axis.

"It crashed through a fence and ended on the roof and into gardens in Elborough Road. There was damage not only to the car but also to the houses."

Mr Meeke told Swindon crown court that residents woken by the sound of the crash looked out of their windows in amazement as they saw Crook get out of the car and run away, leaving his friends unconscious.

Crook then went to a friend's house where he tried to persuade his father to lie for him and say he had been there all night.

Mr Meeke said one teenage passenger was still in hospital more than three months after the crash and had been treated by neurosurgeons at Bristol's Frenchay Hospital.

Crook, of Cherhill Court, Moredon, pleaded guilty to driving while disqualified, no insurance, dangerous driving, aggravated taking without consent and failing to stop.

Rob Ross, defending, said that the accident had made his client reassess his life and since then he has stopped drinking and taking drugs.

Jailing him for nine months, Judge Tom Longbotham said: "You took a car you weren't entitled to take and drive it dangerously. But it gets worse because you ran off when your friend was seriously injured."

He also banned him from driving for a year and ordered he take an extended test before he gets a full licence.