Don’t ban me, says widow drunk at the wheel... my driveway’s far too long to walk!
A WEALTHY widow begged magistrates not to ban her from driving ... because the driveway to her £6million home was far too long for her to walk.
Barbara Woodward, 56, was three times the drink-drive limit when police stopped her at the wheel of her £79,000 Mercedes GClass 4x4.
She had makeup smudged across her face, was slurring her words, and one officer said she appeared to have been up all night.
Her arrest, at 9am on November 17 last year, came just two days after her husband’s funeral.
Woodward, from Cheshire, denied drink-driving but was found guilty.
After her conviction at Stockport Magistrates’ Court, she argued through her solicitor for leniency. She also asked to be spared community service because she had never worked before and it would ‘put her in an alien surrounding’.
Defending Woodward, Nigel Beeson told Tuesday’s hearing: ‘This lady’s property has quite a large front drive, it is a quarter of a mile from the road and it would be difficult for her – she would have to make some lifestyle changes to go about her day-to-day life.’
He added: She is a lady of mature years who has led a blameless life and has somehow found herself breaking the law due to personal tragedy.
‘She is already in a strange enough situation and giving her unpaid work would put her in an alien surrounding and would make her feel uncomfortable and out of her depth.
‘ She has never worked.’ Woodward would struggle to get around’ as she had no children or other relatives, he said, adding that she had now set up an account with a taxi firm.
Magistrates were not swayed by Woodward’s plea to keep her driver’s licence, banning her from the road for two years. However, they spared her the community service.
She was ordered to complete 15 days of rehabilitation, fined £560 and told to pay £705 in costs and surcharges.
Woodward was arrested when she went out in her car to the local shops to buy sparkling wine. The court heard she was planning to make Buck’s Fizz for friends.
She tried to buy wine at a petrol station but the attendant refused to serve her. She then drove to a nearby post office.
Petrol station attendant Sharid Butt told the trial: ‘She was stumbling all over the forecourt. She grabbed three bot- tles of different wines then she stumbled over to the counter. She didn’t seem right and I knew she was drunk.’
After refusing to serve her, Mr Butt said he watched the widow return to her car and drive off ‘really slowly, around 5mph’ before heading to the post office – which is also a convenience store – to try to buy alcohol there. Mr Butt, who kept watch on Woodward, said: ‘She came back out of the shop and she was staggering again and I called the police.’ Officers found Woodward slumped in her seat with a sandwich, her dog and two bottles of wine. Initially she had a reading of almost four times the drink-drive limit. A subse- quent test at the police station showed she had 104mg of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, almost three times the legal limit of 35mg. PC Richard Walker said: ‘She was slurring her words and she was very incoherent. She looked like she had been up all night, she had makeup smudged across her face.’ Woodward, whose husband Andrew, a lawyer, died at 64 after a long illness, claimed she had started drinking the wine only after she bought it from the post office. She added: ‘I buried my husband on Wednesday November 15, and the months leading up to it were terrible. He did everything, and then when he died I had to take over. I had never paid a bill in my life.’ She said she had been left ‘worn out’ and unable to sleep or eat due to her bereavement.
‘Never paid a bill in my life’