‘Drink-drive’ mum escapes ban after spiked orange juice plea
NURSE TOLD COURT SHE DIDN’T KNOW BEVERAGE CONTAINED ALCOHOL
A BUSINESSWOMAN has escaped a driving ban after she convinced a court she drank orange juice for breakfast – not realising it contained vodka.
Successful plastic surgery boss Michelle Butterworth, 37, was getting ready for work the morning after a farewell party to mark her leaving Manchester when she picked up a pint glass from her kitchen top and knocked back the contents.
But as she dropped off two passengers at the Trafford Centre at 8.40am, Butterworth – who was dressed in her medical scrubs – accidentally bumped her Renault Clio into the back of another vehicle at a pedestrian crossing and police found her to be almost twice the legal limit.
Butterworth later insisted she had not been drinking and said she discovered the orange juice contained vodka when she got home from the police station.
She said the vodka and orange drink was made by her son the previous evening and must have been left out after the party finished and she drank it not realising it contained alcohol.
At Manchester Magistrates’ Court, Butterworth – who runs her practice giving anti-wrinkle injections, dermal fillers and lip enhancements in Swinton – admitted drink-driving.
But she escaped with an absolute discharge and no disqualification after JPs said there were ‘special reasons’ not to ban her from the roads.
The incident occurred last November after Butterworth, from Urmston, threw a party to mark her moving to Harbourne in Birmingham.
She told the hearing: “I didn’t knowingly consume alcohol that morning.
“The night before we had been packing up boxes as I was due to leave Manchester and move to Birmingham and so I cooked a chilli and had some drinks with friends at my house.
“I had three large glasses of white wine and I stopped drinking at around 9.30pm or 10pm that night. I had work the next day and I am injecting people’s faces so I couldn’t be feeling rough – my mind has to be clear.
“Two of my friends were there and my son and three of his friends. My son was drinking too as he was having a leaving party kind of thing.
“When I woke up the next morning I felt absolutely fine. There was a glass of orange juice on the side and it was in a pint glass.
“I didn’t know there was alcohol inside the orange juice – I have had two operations on my nose so my taste and sense of smell is poor.”
Ms Butterworth’s son, Lewis Woods, 19, told the court he poured ‘around four shots of vodka’ into a pint glass of orange juice, because his pals had run out of mixers for the booze.
But prosecutor Marion Nolan said tests showed Ms Butterworth had 57 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, with the legal limit being 35mg, and that an expert report said the spiked drink argument ‘didn’t add up’.
The magistrates said: “The evidence of yourself and your son was clear and consistent.
“We find on the basis of a spiked drink argument, special reasons apply and it would not be suitable for us to disqualify you from driving.”