Rula swigged vodka with builders then rolled car on its side... with her 3-year-old grandson in it
ACTRESS Rula Lenska had been drinking vodka with her Polish builders before overturning her car with her three-year-old grandson in the back, a court heard yesterday.
The 68- year- old, who is descended from Polish nobility, had drunk a celebratory shot to toast the end of work on her garden fence.
Yesterday, she was banned from the road after admitting drink-driving. A court in Britain heard that she has been ‘haunted’ by the crash every day since it happened last month. Lenska’s grandson was inside her Kia when she struck a parked car in Twickenham, southwest London, causing her car to roll on to its side.
She and her grandson were helped out through the boot.
The actress, whose TV career took off with Rock Follies in the 1970s and who was married to actor Dennis Waterman in the 1980s, had become distracted by an emergency light on her dashboard.
She was breath- tested after witnesses said they could smell alcohol on her breath.
Seema Parikh, defending, told Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court the actress has been riddled with guilt since the incident which saw her endanger the life of her ‘darling grandson’.
Describing the events that led to the crash, she said it was normal for Lenska to spend ‘cherished’ time with her grandson on a Monday. She added: ‘Earlier in the afternoon she toasted the completion of her garden fence with her Polish builders and they had a vodka to drink.’
Lenska felt ‘quite normal’ in the evening when her daughter Lara asked her to drop the boy home, she said, adding: ‘She would not have risked her own grandson’s life in this kind of situation. She is now thinking about this on a daily basis and it is just remorse and regret.’
The lawyer said the actress had been too ‘traumatised’ by the event to answer questions in a police interview, but had given a prepared statement.
In it Lenska said: ‘I admit that I had drunk some alcohol at lunchtime. But it was a shot of vodka. I was definitely not drunk and felt perfectly capable of driving.’
She added: ‘All of a sudden something flashed up on the dashboard about tyre pressure and I heard a noise of something clicking. All of a sudden the car turned on its side. I was in shock and worried about my grandson.
‘The airbags did not engage. I was terrified and in shock.
‘When I got out of the car I was understandably unsteady on my feet, having just come out of an overturned car. I think anybody in a similar situation would have been unsteady on their feet.
‘I remain very upset about putting my grandson, daughter and her husband through this ordeal. I am on medication and fear this may have caused some problem with me,’ the statement added.
The judge, Bukky Okunade, said the offence had been aggravated by the fact that her grandson had been in the car and that she had collided with another vehicle.
Lenska, from Chiswick, west London, was disqualified from driving for 16 months, fined £410, and ordered to pay a surcharge of £41 and £85 costs.
She admitted driving with 47 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath; the UK legal limit is 35 micrograms. The actress replied ‘no thank you’ when asked to comment as she left court.
Last month, following the crash, she wrote on Twitter: ‘I f eel ashamed and disgusted with myself, there is no excuse. I just thank my guardian angels that we are both totally unharmed.’
She had also been arrested on suspicion of being drunk in charge of a child after the crash but officers took no further action on that alleged offence.
The prosecution noted that the only previous blemish on her driving record was a speeding offence on February 12 last year when she was given three points on her licence.
Lenska, born Countess Roza Lubienska, i s descended from Polish aristocracy. Her parents fled to England in 1946.
Her daughter Lara, 36, is from her first marriage in the 1970s to actor Brian Deacon.
Lenska has appeared in television shows since the 1970s including Doctor Who, To The Manor Born, Minder – which starred Waterman – and One Foot In The Grave.
When she appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006, politician George Galloway pretended to be a cat licking milk from her hands.
‘Remorse and regret’