Young drivers are being warned to think about the consequences of their actions after a prank in a Mansfield car park left one young woman in a coma and another in court.
Emergency services were called to the car park of the Odeon Cinema on the evening of 5 August 2025 after two young women fell from the boot of a moving car.
One of the women fell face-first onto the ground and suffered a life-threatening head injury.
The driver, 19-year-old Evie Robinson, was arrested in the early hours of the morning.
The investigation that followed revealed that she and a group of friends were socialising in the car park near McDonald’s – a location where young drivers were known to gather and drive in an antisocial manner.
Less than an hour beforehand, the victim had climbed onto the back of a car belonging to another friend as it moved forwards and backwards.
After her later fall from the back of Robinson’s car, the victim sustained a bleed on the brain and spent more than a month in hospital.
Robinson, now aged 20, later pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
Appearing at Nottingham Crown Court on 2 and 3 June, Robinson, of Mansfield, was given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years.
She was also banned from driving for four years and ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work.
Detective Constable Christopher Taylor, of Nottinghamshire Police, said:
“This was a shocking incident that left one young woman with a very serious head injury and another in court.
On the night in question, there were multiple people in that car park behaving and driving in ways that were reckless and dangerous.
I’m sure none of them set out to hurt anyone that night, but unfortunately for the defendant, that is exactly what happened.
In short, this was a reckless prank that went terribly wrong for everyone involved, including the person in control of the car.
As the driver of the vehicle, she has now faced some genuinely life-changing legal consequences that I hope other young drivers will take note of.”