The woman who crashed into DIRE STRAITS star Mark Knopfler, putting the rocker in hospital, is to be deported.

MONICA BELTRAN, 23, is being sent back to Ecuador from her London home after she was found guilty of hazardous driving in the March 2003 accident.

According to court reports, Beltran didn't properly check her mirrors or indicate when she made a hard right into a gas station in central London. She collided with Knopfler's motorbike.

District Judge MICHAEL SNOW expressed his frustration in court that he could not fully punish her because she was already sentenced to be deported on a false passport charge.

Beltran has been sentenced to 15 months jail time for the passport charge.

Knopfler was unable to play the guitar for nearly seven months and needed over a year of physiotherapy after breaking a collar bone, shoulder and seven ribs in the crash.

29/06/2004 02:56