A north-east woman who got behind the wheel while more than five times the legal alcohol limit – with an 11-month-old in the back seat – has narrowly avoided jail.
Last year Marion Stephen was warned she could be locked up when she appeared from custody at Aberdeen Sheriff Court and admitted committing her second drink-drive offence.
She had been caught driving with 115 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 22mcg.
The court heard officers approached her on the A96 Huntly to Inverurie road on November 14 after they had received reports of a car being driven erratically.
When they went to look for the blue Land Rover they found it parked on a grass verge at the side of the road near Bogside.
Police approached the vehicle and they could see Stephen trying to get out of the driver’s side of the car.
And when they started to talk to the 33-year-old they believed she was under the influence of alcohol.
A road side breath test showed she was more than five times the legal limit and officers found an 11-month-old child strapped into the back seat.
This morning Sheriff William Taylor spared Stephen a jail sentence despite previously telling her it was “appalling” for a “drunk woman” to drive with a baby in the car.
Instead he placed her under supervision for a year and ordered her to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work in the next six months.
She was also disqualified from driving for three years.
The court previously heard that the reading from her first conviction was 73mcg of alcohol in 100ml of breath.
Fiscal depute Lynzi Souter said Stephen had told the officers, who found her at the side of the road, that she had stopped as she needed to go to the toilet.
She said before Stephen had pulled over concerns had been raised by members of the public about her manner of driving.
Defence agent Iain Hingston said his client, of 5 Paradise Road, Kemnay, was disgusted and ashamed with herself.