Victoria Reeve, 43, of West View, Ackworth, had taken her daughter Kayleigh to London’s West End to mark her 21st birthday when Alberto Ramos, 33, hit them as they stood in a crowd on the pavement.

He was jailed at Southwark Crown Court yesterday for four years but Kayleigh said: “He will never understand the pain I’ve been through and the nightmares I have. For him, it happened in a day – for me it’s a lifetime.”

Karen Holt, prosecuting, told the court mum Victoria was waiting to cross the road with her daughter and two friends when the car drove straight into her, throwing her up into the air.

Ms Holt said: “Fully aware of what was going on, she saw her right foot above the ankle had been torn off and was about three to four foot away. She was taken to hospital but her leg was unable to be saved.”

The court was told Kayleigh heard her mother’s screams and then saw the car coming straight towards her.

She was knocked unconscious and woke up in hospital to be told she had lost her right leg below the knee.

Kayleigh’s friends Heather Abraham and Kathleen Southern, both from Pontefract, were also injured in the crash.

Heather had a fractured collar bone and Kathleen received broken ribs, a broken arm and concussion.

Ms Holt said a blood sample from Ramos – who was on his way to meet his drug dealer when the horror smash occurred – contained amphetamine, crystal meth and alprazolam.

In a victim impact statement, Kayleigh, who worked as a professional dog walker before the accident, said: “My life has been turned upside down. I have not had one decent night’s sleep. Every night I get woken up by the image of this car smashing into me, my mum and my two friends.

“For a second I think it was only a nightmare but then I feel the throbbing pain in my stump and realise it’s real.

“Not a day goes past without me being reminded of this tragic event. I often get flashbacks during the day. I don’t like going out in public as I feel people are staring at me.

“When I do go out, I am very nervous around traffic and am scared to cross the road.

“I still get quite a bit of pain in my stump, even with all the medication I’m on. But the worse pain is the phantom pain in my foot, which isn’t there.

“It’s indescribable. It’s like pins and needles and sometimes I get a shooting pain right down my shin, which is agony.”

John Traversi, defending for Spanish-born Ramos, of Capland Street, St John’s Wood, London, said he took drugs to alleviate “severe psychological stress” because he was HIV positive.

Ramos pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and two counts of unlawful wounding.

Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC sentenced him to 21 months for dangerous driving and four years, concurrent, for the unlawful wounding charges but slammed the legal system, saying its maximum sentence of two years for dangerous driving did not allow the courts to “do justice and protect.”

Ramos was also banned from driving for nine years.