A TEEN footballer who crashed his mother's car and injured four friends after a boozy night out has avoided jail.

Charlton Athletic youth team player Keiran Murtagh was "showing off" to his four friends when the speeding Ford Fiesta smashed into a parked car in Wapping High Street, east London.

The 18-year-old admitted to police he had drunk three cans of Stella Artois lager and had taken the car without his mother's permission.

Although he failed a roadside breath test, Murtagh was found to be under the drink-drive limit at a police station, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard on Febuary 5.

Murtagh, of Matilda House, St Katharines Way, Wapping, had no driving licence or insurance.

A woman passenger suffered pelvis injuries and bruising to the head while a man was treated for injuries to the hip and jaw.

Two other friends received minor cuts and bruises.

Judge Timothy King told Murtagh, who hopes to win a professional contract, he had come within a "hair's breath" of going to prison.

He said: "It is by a streak of utmost good fortune that no-one was killed in this incident.

"If any of the four occupants in the motor car which you were driving that night had been killed, you would be going to prison for a long time."

Branding Murtagh's behaviour as "disgraceful", Judge King added: "You had been speeding in order to show off to your young friends."

He also said the midfielder should not have any special treatment for being a footballer.

He said: "There is a popular misconception that footballers, or young footballers, should be accorded a status different from other members of society, that is not the approach I personally take.

"You had a reckless disregard for the life, not only for yourself, but for the others in the vehicle by behaving in this way.

"I can tell you have come within a hair's breath of going immediately to prison."

Murtagh had reached nearly 60mph when he hit a cobbled part of the road, smashed into the parked car and then careered down the road for a further 100 metres.

A passenger was flung from the backseat into the front windscreen and the parked Nissan had its door ripped off in the incident at 6.30am on September 3 last year.

Paul Jarvis, mitigating, said the teenager was a young man of "talent and prospect".

Mr Jarvis said: "He realised immediately that those in the vehicle were injured and he attempted to offer assistance before police arrived. It was not a premeditated offence.

"It was very much a spur of the moment decision prompted by goading by his friends but he accepts full responsibility for what followed."

Murtagh admitted aggravated vehicle taking, driving without insurance and without a licence.

He was given a nine-month sentence suspended for two years and ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work.

Murtagh was also banned from driving for three years.