Doctor caught drunk at wheel twice is let off jail because of ‘stress of job’
A JUNIOR doctor arrested drunk at the wheel twice has been spared jail after blaming the “insurmountable” stress of her work.
Lauren Fowler, 25, who graduated from Imperial College London last year, began drinking heavily because of the pressure during her medical studies, it was alleged.
Stockport magistrates were told that Fowler began drinking white wine at lunch with friends in Manchester last October before buying a bottle from an off-licence, then crashing her car in a busy pedestrian area.
She was so drunk she could barely speak and officers found an empty wine bottle in the footwell, the court heard.
Fowler was bailed but was stopped again weeks later after drinking half a bottle of vodka before hitting a vehicle in a hotel car park near her family’s home in Styal, near Wilmslow, Cheshire.
Tests showed she was over three times the drink-drive limit.
Fowler wept in court on Monday as magistrates said her offending “crossed the custody threshold” – but they allowed her to go free.
The doctor, who admitted drinkdriving and failing to provide a breath specimen, was sentenced to eight weeks jail, suspended for a year, told to do 40 hours unpaid work and banned from driving for three years. Joseph O’Connor, prosecuting, said of the first arrest: “Police attended a minor road traffic collision and met the defendant, who was clearly intoxicated.
“She was swearing and slurring her words and they could smell intoxicants on her breath.
“She admitted she had drunk two bottles of wine and was taken to the police station. She was described as acting very emotionally and she failed to provide a specimen of breath because she was so upset.’’ Her father John, 65, a management training company boss, said “Oh my God’’ in the public gallery as she was let off jail.
Fowler was shortlisted for a UK Scientist of the Year award in 2011 and went to Cambridge before enrolling in 2014 at Imperial.
A probation service statement read in court said: “She drank at university to cope with the stress and she didn’t know who to go to for help with her addiction. She admits this is a massive wake-up call for her.” Helen Turner, defending, said Fowler, who battled a brain tumour as a teenager, now faces a disciplinary investigation by the General Medical Council.
Explaining Fowler’s drinking, she said: “It is insurmountable the amount of work she does. She works 48 hours during the week, works overtime and also volunteers at the weekend. She has already made steps to making sure this never happens again. She has given up alcohol completely.”
Pleading for Fowler to be spared jail, she said: “She has already punished herself enough.”