By Perry Duffin
A Sydney socialite who smashed into multiple parked cars before horrified diners tried to pull her from her Range Rover in front of the Herald’s cameras has been disqualified from driving and fined after losing a bid to have her case thrown out on mental health grounds.
Vanessa Jacobs Fennell was “doing laps” around Bellevue Hill with shredded tyres when she smashed into a parked Tesla and grazed other cars in late March.
Vanessa Jacobs Fennell, 54, outside Waverley Local Court this month. Credit: Edwina Pickles
The Herald came across the wreck as Jacobs Fennell was being pulled from behind the wheel of the badly damaged black SUV by shocked members of the public.
She had been drinking at a lunch in the wealthy enclave of Double Bay with friends hours earlier.
“That’s cocktails for you – I’ve seen it before,” one onlooker claimed.
Police were quickly on the scene, where Jacobs Fennell assaulted one of the officers as they took her into custody.
Diners escort Jacobs Fennell from the vehicle after the crash in March.Credit: Rhett Wyman
Jacobs Fennell initially pleaded not guilty to a string of charges. She spent the night in Waverley Police Station cells before pleading guilty to negligent driving, assaulting police, refusing to submit to a breath test and failing to give her particulars.
The 54-year-old asked the courts to deal with her under the Mental Health Act so she could avoid conviction, known in the courts as a section 14.
On Monday, she again fronted Waverley Local Court, where magistrate Kirk Dailly denied the section 14, instead convicting her on three of the four offences.
She was ordered to pay a total $1300 in fines and was disqualified from driving for six months.
Jacobs Fennell was found guilty, but escaped conviction, for assaulting the officer and was placed on a conditional release order for a year.
Her legal team told Dailly this month she was usually “punctilious” about not drink-driving but had been in a “confused” state because of antidepressants.
“She goes out to lunch, has alcoholic drinks, which is something she’s done before,” her lawyer told the court.
“But she then gets in a car, which is something she’s never done before.
Jacobs Fennell admitted to assaulting an officer as they questioned her metres from the wreck of her car.Credit: Rhett Wyman
“[It] leads to egregious decision-making which is … highly uncharacteristic for this woman.”
The side of her Range Rover had been badly damaged where Jacobs Fennell grated it along multiple cars parked on Bellevue Road.
A white Tesla’s rear bumper, a wing-mirror on a van and the front of a Subaru had all taken a hit.
Jacobs Fennell’s lawyers told the court she had been prescribed the antidepressants after stressors in her life, including the loss of two children.
The lawyers also claimed Jacobs Fennell had been the victim of domestic violence, but conceded they had no evidence for the claim, such as a police report or document.
Jacobs Fennell was shortlisted for a series of The Real Housewives of Sydney before being punted from the cast, reportedly over tensions with another cast member.
She was described in the gossip pages, at the time, as “a charity fundraiser who has been on committees for Sydney Children’s Hospital and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute” and who had been married to a private equity worker.
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