Pensioner who ‘needs vehicle’ spared ban
A DRINK-DRIVING pensioner has kept her licence after a court heard she needed her car to get to WI meetings, Italian lessons and keep fit classes.
Mary Walker, 70, was found slumped in the driver’s seat of her VW Golf with a half-drunk bottle of vodka following a row with her husband at their £600,000 farmhouse.
Police were alerted by passers-by who spotted her asleep in the vehicle in a car park near St John’s Church in Bollington, Cheshire, with the engine running. Officers tried to wake her up by tapping on her driver’s window but had to open the door to rouse her. She had 67 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 mg.
At Stockport magistrates’ court Walker, who lives in Sutton, near Macclesfield, admitted being drunk in charge of a car but urged justices not to ban her, saying she needed her vehicle to get to WI meetings, Italian lessons and keep fit sessions. She also said she used the car to take her 73-year-old husband Leslie to hospital appointments.
She has since gone teetotal and has started working with the Christian aid charity Barnabas. She told the hearing: “I am extremely ashamed of myself. I want to apologise for wasting your time, I really do.” Magistrates gave her 10 points on her licence saying they hoped Walker had “learnt her lesson”. She was fined £130, with £85 costs and a £30 victim surcharge.