A woman who left a 90-year-old man in the road to die after a hit-and-run smash won an appeal to have her jail sentence cut.

Mary Merritt was driving with no insurance and without L-plates when she tried to beat a lorry across a give-way junction and hit the pensioner The 34-year-old, of Garden Crescent, Barnham, was jailed for five years on 23 May last year after being convicted by a jury at Chichester Crown Court of causing death by dangerous driving.

But yesterday judges sitting at London's Court of Criminal Appeal reduced that to four years because they ruled it could not be said that Merritt, a heroin user, had been under the influence of the drug at the time.

Mr Justice Mackay, sitting with Lord Justice Potter and Judge David Mellor, said the 90-year-old victim took ten days to die in "great discomfort and pain".

His death deprived his daughter of "her mentor" and a man who, although retired, led an active and full life, the judge said.

And, he added, she had to decide whether to prolong the inevitable by allowing doctors to give her father antibiotics.

Immediately after the collision, Merritt, who the court heard had only been driving a short distance, was seen by the lorry driver to slow down, look round to see what had happened and then drive off.

She and a friend who had been giving her an unofficial driving lesson later abandoned the car, but the next day Merritt gave herself up to police.

The judge said the delay meant the police could not test her for drink or drugs.

Her friend, who later died of unrelated causes, would have faced charges if he had lived, Mr Justice Mackay added.

He said the aggravating features of the case included that she was racing, must have known she had hit the old man, abandoned her car and delayed reporting the accident.

But he said the Crown Court judge was wrong to take into account the fact that she was a heroin user when passing sentence.

He said: "There was no evidence to justify the finding that she was under the influence of drugs at the time.

"The question of drugs and whether she was under the influence should not have featured in the judge's rationale."

The judge added: "This court has no sympathy with this appellant.

"But in one respect, the sentencer has erred in placing this in the spectrum of penalties of this type."