Troubled Kay dead
Alcoholic solicitor was hours from being sentenced
A lawyer was found dead just hours before she was due to be sentenced for crashing her car while drunk.
Kay McFarlane, 34, was set to appear at the sheriff court last Thursday after admitting being more than five times the drink- drive limit. She crashed her motor at Crosshouse Hospital last summer.
A legal source said : “She was a very capable and confident young solicitor, doing well and running her own firm.”
A lawyer from Ayr has been found dead just hours before she was due to be sentenced for crashing her car while drunk.
Kay McFarlane, 34, was due to appear at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court last Thursday after admitting being more than five times the drink- drive limit when she had an accident at Crosshouse Hospital, near Kilmarnock, last summer.
But Crown Office officials received a report confirming the sudden death of the director of Newmilns- based Mair Mathieson Solicitors, died last Wednesday.
A legal source said: “She was a very capable and confident young solicitor, doing well professionally, and running her own firm. It’s utterly, utterly tragic, 34 is no age at all.”
Another added: “What a poor girl. She was talented but had a lot of issues to overcome.”
The troubled lawyer caused £ 6000 of damage to her car when she scraped it along railings while trying to drive around a roundabout in July last year.
The court previously heard Kay, of Ayr, was driving so carelessly, another motorist had to perform an emergency stop to avoid a collision.
When she was detained and taken to the police station to provide a blood sample, it emerged she had 279 milligrams of alcohol in 100ml of blood – more than fiveanda- half- times the 50mg limit.
The solicitor pleaded guilty to charges of drink- driving and careless driving at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court last month.
Defence solicitor advocate Simon Brown told Sheriff Michael Higgins that Kay, the joint director of the practise in Newmilns, was an alcoholic, saying her difficulties began following the death of her father.
He told the court she had taken “significant steps” to get sober after treatment last year but had relapsed and committed the offence. The lawyer said she had been to her GP to seek help and that her licence had been revoked in September last year due to her alcoholism. He said she spent time at a residential detoxification facility in Irvine where she made good progress.
The court heard she had not drunk since and would be able to keep her job at the firm she runs alongside fellow director Andrew Matheson.
Sheriff Higgins had deferred sentence on the solicitor so a social work report could be prepared, saying he was “concerned about the [ alcohol] reading”. The lawyer, who faced up to a year in prison for the offence, was also to be assessed on her suitability for a restriction of liberty order – which would see her fitted with an electronic tag and having to remain within her home in Ayr every night for a specified period of time.
The Çrown Office said the investigation into the death is ongoing and the family would continue to be kept updated with any developments.
She was very capable and confident Legal source