Violinist avoids jail after causing car crash at twice the drug drive limit

Violinist Victoria Yellop, who trained at London’s Trinity College of Music, was given a four-month suspended prison sentence and a six-month night-time curfew for causing a traffic accident while under the influence of cocaine. She was also banned from driving for three years.

The 34-year-old pulled out in front of a motorcyclist who suffered cracked ribs, a fractured sternum and a broken thigh bone in the accident.

Yellop admitted to driving without due care and attention and drug driving – she settled out of court for damages. She was at twice the drug drive limit and said she had taken cocaine the night before.

In a separate case in July this year she was given a suspended two-year prison sentence for her involvement in a staged burglary at the house of a friend in 2015. She admitted perverting the course of justice, theft and being concerned in the supply of a class A drug after conspiring with her then boyfriend to steal £25,000 worth of valuables from a property she was house-sitting – later calling the police and claiming to have discovered the burglary.

The judge suspended her sentence, accepting that she had been coerced by her physically and mentally abusive partner, who was jailed for four years.

The court dealing with the more recent driving offence, committed in May this year, was not in a position to call in the two-year suspended sentence as the accident occurred prior to that sentencing.

Yellop’s website biography says that her experience as a freelance violinist includes playing with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and playing in backing bands for Will Young, Vanessa Mae and Gloria Gaynor.