JAIL FOR DRINK-DRIVE LAWYER WHO ‘VEERED ALL OVER ROAD’
Motorist was nearly four times the limit
A LAWYER who claimed she didn’t know she’d been drinking alcohol when pulled over for drink-driving sobbed as she was jailed.
Louise Taylor gave an ‘exceptionally high’ reading to police when stopped after her Range Rover was seen veering ‘all over the road’.
The 41-year-old corporate lawyer for a banking firm blamed the alcohol reading on a herbal tea drink her friend had given her. Magistrates had heard that brewing yeast had apparently been used by mistake when making the kombucha.
Taylor, of Holmes Chapel Road in Sandbach, was said to have drunk some of the drink at the friend’s house in Connah’s Quay before heading off down the A55. She told an earlier court hearing the tea – made of mushrooms and yeast – was ‘disgusting’ but she’d been told it was good for the gut.
Yesterday, magistrates at Llandudno magistrates court told Taylor she had appeared to show ‘a lack of remorse or recognition of any responsibility for the offence’.
Chairman Toby Prosser jailed her for 10 weeks, and added: “We are in a position where we have to stick to our guidelines and apply justice in the right way.”
A 31-month driving ban was also imposed, although it will be reduced if she completes a drinkdrivers’ course. At a previous hearing before the case was adjourned for sentencing, Taylor said her pal had told her the ‘disgusting’ herbal drink was good for gut health.
“I didn’t believe it was alcoholic,” she said when she tried to avoid a driving ban, arguing ‘special reasons’.
Taylor had admitted driving her 4x4, bearing a personalised number plate, on the A55 dual carriageway with a breath-alcohol count of 135. The legal limit is 35. But she maintained throughout that she did not knowingly drink and drive.
A probation officer said there was still ‘some minimisation’ of the offence by Taylor who separated from her partner last year. She was currently living at Abergele in a house inherited following the loss of her mother and intended to sell her Cheshire property. Defence solicitor Andrew Hutchinson said there were no previous convictions and Taylor took home more than £66,000 a year. The risk of her reoffending was extremely low and the court appearance had caused ‘huge embarrassment’.
Taylor must also pay £868 costs.