A drunken mum-of-three turned highway robber and stole the car of a Good Samaritan who had stopped to help her.

Victim Max Shenley had been flagged down by Hannah Smyth in April last year at night on a dark, secluded road near Edenbridge.

The 32-year-old then asked for a lift home but the Toyota Yaris driver told her he was in a rush and asked her: "Why are you here?"

Smyth replied: "I just want a lift home."

Maidstone Crown Court heard that it was then that Smyth's boyfriend - who had been lurking in nearby bushes - punched Mr Shenley and the robbers then dragged him from the car before driving away.

Smyth, of Bough Beech Road, Edenbridge escaped going straight to prison and then began laughing and joking with a security official.

She was then rebuked by Judge Stephen Thomas who told her: "This is not a laughing matter."

Smyth had just received a two-year prison sentence suspended for two years after being told she was now studying law at university and volunteering with the probation service.

But the judge told her that not sending her straight to jail had been "a marginal decision on my part... you have escaped prison by a very very thin line".

Prosecutor Ryan Richter told how at 11.15pm on April 3 last year Mr Shenley was driving along the B2027 at Bough Beech.

After turning into Hale Oak Road he saw a woman standing in the middle of the road who flagged him down.

He said: "Mr Shenley applied the brakes and stopped. The woman came up to his window and asked for a lift to Penshurst.

"Unfortunately he told her he was in a rush to go home and told her he was sorry he couldn't help her."

It was then he saw a man of medium build and in his 20s, emerging from nearby bushes, and as the the frightened motorist tried to drive away, the unidentified man grabbed the car keys.

The prosecutor told how Mr Shenley was punched "with full force" in the face by the male robber who had shouted: "Stop the ****** car."

The driver was then dragged from the vehicle by the two robbers.

"You have escaped prison by a very very thin line" - Judge Thomas

He then fled believing the robbers were going to mete out more violence and hid behind a telegraph pole as the pair drove off.

Mr Richter said Mr Shenley was terrified and dialled 999.

He added: "About 15 minutes later police were alerted to a vehicle causing a road traffic accident in Allandale Road, Tunbridge Wells a very short distance from where the Toyota had been taken.

"It had crashed into parked cars causing damage and neighbours then pointed officers to an address where Smyth had gone."

The prosecutor said Smyth was found sitting in the lounge claiming she had travelled by train.

"The officers noticed she was drunk and slurring her speech and she had a mark on her left shoulder consistent with that made by a seatbelt."

Police also discovered footage from the nearby Wheatsheaf Pub showing Smyth and her lover quarrelling in the car park when she was pushed to the ground.

Jessica Clarke, defending, said: "It must have been a shocking and very scary event."

But she said that Smyth, who had admitted robbery, had now ended the relationship with the lover, had "weaned herself" off crack cocaine and is studying at university.

Judge Thomas told her that it had been "highway robbery" and the victim faced "a terrifying ordeal."

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