Doctor crashed car TWICE while over booze limit

MEDIC SAYS STRESS CAUSED HER TO DRINK

A DOCTOR who twice crashed her car while drunk at the wheel has claimed the stress of her training drove her to booze.

When Dr Lauren Fowler, 25, crashed her Ford Ka in an area busy with pedestrians, police found her ‘incoherent’ with drink and an empty bottle of wine in the footwell. She had bought the wine from an off-licence and knocked it back at the wheel after drinking with friends over lunch in Manchester.

Then, two months later while she was on bail, Fowler crashed her vehicle in the car park of the Stanneylands hotel in Wilmslow, Cheshire. She had drunk half-a-bottle of vodka before going to the gym.

Now Fowler has been spared jail at Stockport Magistrates’ Court. The court heard she began drinking as a student at Imperial College London to ‘cope with the stress’ of her medical course.

The first incident happened in October, just months after she graduated.

“Police attended a minor road traffic collision and met the defendant who was clearly intoxicated”, prosecutor Joseph O’Connor said. “She was swearing and slurring her words and they could smell intoxicants on her breath.”

As she was arrested she admitted that she had drunk two bottles of wine and was taken to the police station. She was described as acting very emotionally. She failed to provide a specimen of breath because she was so upset.”

Fowler was bailed but was stopped again less than two months later, after she drank half a bottle of vodka then drove around the hotel car park near her family’s home in Styal, Cheshire.

Tests showed she was more than three times the drink drive limit.

Mr O’Connor added: “She was taken to the police station and gave two samples of breath. In interview she made admissions and told them she had drunk half a bottle of vodka before deciding to go to the gym.”

Fowler - a first year doctor - was told her offending ‘crossed the custody threshold,’ but her jail term was suspended after magistrates heard she had since managed to quit drinking.

Defending, Helen Turner said she now faces a disciplinary investigation by the General Medical Council.

“She has an addictive behaviour, she admits this. She has a very stressful lifestyle”, the lawyer added.

“It is insurmountable the amount of work she does. She works 48 hours during the week, and she works overtime, and also volunteers at the weekend. You can’t deny the dedication she has for her career. She has given up alcohol completely. She has been seeing an addiction counsellor every week.”

Fowler admitted drink driving and failing to provide a breath specimen. She was sentenced to eight weeks’ jail, suspended for a year, ordered to complete 40 hours’ unpaid work and banned from driving for three years and ordered to pay £200 court costs.