A lucky escape from the water, but not the law

A birthday dinner had an unexpected end in Lochgilphead Police Station for a Tarbert woman.

Jean Ferguson was leaving her birthday celebration to walk home and decided to put her gifts and balloons in her car to collect the following day, when she could be sure she was not over the drink-drive limit.

But as she leaned into the car, she accidentally disengaged the vehicle’s pushbutton handbrake and it started to move.

‘The car started to roll backwards, towards the water, and she was half in, half out of it, trying to prevent an extremely heavy vehicle from heading towards the water,’ Ferguson’s defence agent, Judith Hutchison, told the May sitting of Campbeltown Sheriff Court last week.

Once the 62-year-old had managed to stop the car, she was in a state of shock at what had happened; then the police arrived, and began the procedure for a roadside breath test. When she failed to co-operate, they took her to Lochgilphead Police Station.

Ferguson, of 9 Mealdarroch, Tarbert, admitted that she failed to provide two specimens of breath for analysis when required to do so and to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner by shouting, swearing and being aggressive on Saturday November 20 last year in Tarbert and at the police station.

‘She had absolutely no intention of driving her vehicle; it had been left there to collect when she was capable of driving,’ said Ms Hutchison, adding that instead of being sympathetic to her plight and the trauma of what had just happened, the police were ‘bullish’ towards Ferguson when they arrived on scene.

‘She apologises profusely for her behaviour that night and stressed that she would not have driven the car,’ said Ms Hutchison. ‘She was in shock.’

Sheriff Patrick Hughes fined Ferguson a total of £375, with a victim surcharge of £20 and disqualified her from driving for the minimum period of 12 months, which can be reduced to nine if she successfully completes a driver rehabilitation course at her own expense.