Crash driver passed out at the wheel while she was 8 times limit
A FLORIST who crashed into a bridge after drinking herself into a stupor was found to be more than eight times the legal alcohol limit.
Christina Lochhead had the highest reading a police officer had ever seen after she drank so much she fell unconscious at the wheel.
A trial heard Lochhead was still almost eight times the limit when released from hospital three hours after her accident.
Yesterday at Perth Sheriff Court, the 28-year-old was banned from driving for 30 months and ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work in the community.
She was found guilty of failing to provide two breath specimens after driving on the B9099 at Caputh in Perthshire on May 25 last year, when she had twice got into a car to drive to a nearby shop.
Lochhead, who now works in a care home, twice managed to provide a single specimen but claimed she could not add a second because she had a panic attack, the court heard.
Sheriff Richard MacFarlane said: ‘If there had been a true reading then it would have been a very, very significant level of alcohol.
‘You had seen fit to undertake two journeys when you had consumed a very considerable amount of alcohol.
‘These journeys came to a conclusion when you crashed into the railings on a bridge. You were found by concerned members of public, drifting in and out of conried sciousness as a result of alcohol consumption.’
He told her she should ‘count her blessings’ she had not been injured or hurt anyone else.
The court heard after the accident happened around 1pm Lochhead was taken to Perth Royal Infirmary.
A roadside test had produced a reading of 177 mic of alcohol in 100 ml of breath. Another, car- out at 4pm, was 174 mic. The limit is 22 mic.
The sheriff told Lochhead, of Murthly, Perthshire: ‘There seemed to be no evidence of you experiencing a panic attack.’
He added: ‘The second police officer recalled the circumstances of the case because he had never come across such a high breath alcohol reading before.’
Meanwhile, a learner driver who led police on an ‘extremely low speed’ pursuit during a latenight lesson in a friend’s car was banned from driving for 14 months and fined £430.
Emily Forbes, 20, of Bridge of Earn, Perthshire, was brought to a halt by police just after midnight on July 23 after they spotted her driving at walking pace in Auld Bond Road, Perth.
She claimed she had been told to try driving by her friend, who owned the car, even though she had not applied for a provisional licence, the sheriff court heard.
Forbes admitted driving while more than double the limit and with no licence or insurance.
‘In and out of consciousness’