Pie hunger drove drunk

The lure of a pie proved too much for a drunk and disqualified driver who stole her father’s car and drove into town to get one.

Georgina Azalea Lee Hogg, 30, pleaded guilty in the Wanganui District Court to unlawfully taking a motor vehicle, driving while disqualified, and excess breath alcohol third or subsequent.

She was sentenced to six months’ home detention and disqualified from driving indefinitely by Judge Gregory Ross.

The court was told Hogg was drinking at home on September 3 last year when she sneaked into her father’s room while he was asleep and took his car keys.

She was stopped by police after a member of the public reported her.

She was found to have a breath alcohol level of 703mcg per 100ml of breath, almost twice the legal limit.

She told the officer she was going into town to buy a pie.

Hogg’s counsel, Debbie Goodlet, said alcohol abuse was an

aggravating factor, but Hogg was expecting a child in the next few weeks and had been abstaining from alcohol. Judge Ross told Hogg that had she not been heavily pregnant and had the vehicle she took been a stranger’s and not her father’s, he would have sent her to prison.

— APN