Accountant four times over drink limit ‘slept in her car to avoid bossy mum’
AN accountant discovered four times over the drinkdrive limit told police she was sleeping in her car to escape her overbearing mother.
Paulina Gancarz, 34, turned to alcohol following a bitter divorce, a court heard.
Her ‘traditional’ mother had come from her native Poland to help look after Gancarz’s sevenyear-old daughter, but the pair had a difficult relationship.
The older woman put ‘pressure’ on her daughter and disapproved of the divorce – which cost her £65,000 in lawyer’s fees and her business, and forced her to take a job on a lower salary.
Last month Gancarz was found slumped at the wheel of her Mini Cooper with a bottle of wine in a layby near Wilmslow, Cheshire. A breath test revealed she had 182 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35mg.
Gancarz subsequently refused to go to a police station to provide a second specimen, and was ordered to court a fortnight later. On the day she was due to appear she crashed the same car outside a Marks & Spencer at 7am while three times over the drink-drive limit.
Gancarz wept as she narrowly avoided jail after admitting drink-driving and failing to provide a specimen of breath at Stockport Magistrates’ Court.
A probation service report, read to the court, said Gancarz was on medication for depression and anxiety.
‘On April 14 she had been having an issue with her mother, who was over to help with her daughter. She was depressed and was not coping very well.
‘Mrs Gancarz’s mother was not happy with her situation and the fact she was looking after her daughter on her own following the divorce. She was coming to help her with the situation but they have a difficult relationship. She put a lot of pressure on her.
‘She didn’t know it was an offence to be drunk in her car but she now admits it was very poor ... she accepts she was running away from her issues rather than facing them.’ At the time of the second offence, on April 30, she was also looking after her grandmother and ‘ became overwhelmed with her responsibilities’.
Karen Rolls, defending, said Gancarz had no previous convictions and was ‘extremely remorseful’. The lawayer said: ‘She has been going through a difficult time and is finding it hard to cope. She is going to meet with another counsellor. She is very vulnerable but she wants to work with probation.’
Gancarz was banned from driving for three years and also ordered to complete a 12month community order, 60 hours’ unpaid work, go on a drink- driver awareness course and pay £170 costs.