Drink-driver ‘grieving for her dead cat’ is spared jail

A WOMAN facing jail over her third drink-driving conviction has walked free after saying she was ‘lonely’ due to the death of her cat.

Retired nurse Ethel Al-Safar, 74, pictured, was arrested after she got drunk on white wine and vodka and crashed her Vauxhall Agila outside a parade of shops.

Police found the divorced mother-oftwo struggling to stand up following the crash last month, and tests showed she was nearly three times the drink- drive limit. Further inquiries revealed she had been convicted of drink-driving twice since 2010. Al-Safar faced up to six months in prison after she admitted her third offence of driving with excess alcohol at Manchester Magistrates’ Court.

But she escaped with 12 weeks suspended for a year after she said the crash occurred while she was grieving the death of her cat 24 hours earlier. She described the 14-year-old feline as her ‘only companion’. Both of her sons live abroad.

A report compiled by a probation officer and read to the hearing, said: ‘She had been drinking on an empty stomach from midday and decided to drive to the Chinese takeaway up the road ... I asked why she consumed so much, she said she feels very lonely and had recently buried her pet cat of 14 years, her only companion. She became extremely tearful at that point.’

Despite her previous convictions, probation officers said Al-Safar, of Ashton-on-Mersey, posed ‘a low risk of causing harm and re-offending’.

She was banned from driving for five years and ordered to pay costs of £200. Magistrate John Wood told her: ‘It is a very difficult case but also a very serious one too. This is your third offence.

‘It is lucky that someone has not been killed and we seriously were considering custody ... I accept that there has been reasons, but at the end of the day it is dangerous.’