A PEER’S daughter who smashed her Land Rover through a set of church gates while in a state of “mental turmoil” has failed in an Appeal Court challenge to her convictions.

The Honourable Linda Elizabeth Granville was convicted of two counts of dangerous driving and causing criminal damage to the gates of Great Malvern Priory, after colliding with two cars, one before and one after she “rammed” the church gates last May.

Granville, the daughter of the late Lord Granville of Eye, of Bonsil Drive, Malvern, was handed a 10-month sentence, suspended for two years, at Worcester Crown Court last October. She asked Mr Justice Openshaw and Judge Clement Goldstone QC, sitting at London’s Criminal Appeal Court, to quash the verdicts, saying she was not allowed to put all evidence before them, but they dismissed her application.

Mr Justice Openshaw said: “In our judgement these convictions were entirely safe and this application is refused. Her guilt on these matters was so very clear.”

The 62-year-old jumped a red light, narrowly missed pedestrians and crashed into two other cars in Malvern, as well as ploughing through the gates of the church, which a bystander had closed to try to contain her while police arrived. She had left a number of notes and documents at the Priory on the day of her rampage which “strongly indicated some mental turmoil or distress”, Mr Justice Openshaw said.

She told police she had “been attacked by the verger” at the church and had driven through the gates to escape.