A corporate lawyer who was caught driving almost four times over the drink-drive limited blamed her friend’s homemade kombucha tea.
Louise Taylor, 41, was stopped by police on the A55 in Wales on April 22 after officers saw her Range Rover Sport veering ‘all over the road’.
When she was pulled over, officers say her eyes were ‘red and glazed’ and that her speech was slurred.
Appearing at Llandudno Magistrates’ Court today, Taylor, from Sandbach, Cheshire, was given a 10 week prison sentence and wept as she was led to the cells.
She admitted driving her 4×4, bearing a personalised number plate, on the A55 with a breath-alcohol count of 135. The legal limit is 35.
But at a previous hearing, before her case was adjourned for sentencing, Taylor had tried to dodge a driving ban, by arguing ‘special reasons.’
She said her friend had told her the ‘disgusting’ herbal drink was good for gut health, which she didn’t know was alcoholic.
Taylor said her friend Angela Morrison brewed it using yeast and mushrooms and also didn’t know at the time that it was alcoholic. She told the court she was ‘not a massive drinker at all’.
Her previous defence lawyer had said it appeared the wrong type of yeast – a brewer’s variety – was used in making the drink.
Prosecuting Diane Williams said on the evening of April 22 police were behind Taylor’s 4×4 at Rhuallt when they saw it travelling ‘all over the road’.
A PC who followed her for six miles, using blue lights and a siren to try and stop her, said her vehicle had been drifting on the hard shoulder and nearly collided with a number of wagons while overtaking.
PC Peter Doran said: ‘Her eyes were red and glazed, her speech slurred. She was very unsteady on her feet.’
Officers also found a half-full bottle in the car, which contained a liquid that smelt of alcohol.
Taylor, who said she was head of legal at her work, described how she had met a friend in the town of Knutsford in the morning to take their dogs for a walk.
She then went for lunch in a hotel restaurant and shared a bottle of wine. She had stopped to see her friend Angela at Connah’s Quay, on the way to Abergele.
Taylor said her friend wouldn’t knowingly give her alcohol. But she had at least two glasses of the kombucha and drank from a water bottle containing it as she drove.
She had also taken four antihistamines for hay fever that day and started feeling unwell.
Taylor said she took the drink ‘in good faith’ and maintained that she ‘didn’t knowingly drink and drive’.
Defence solicitor Andrew Hutchinson said there were no previous convictions and Taylor took home more than £66,000 a year.
The risk of her re-offending was extremely low and the court appearance had caused ‘huge embarrassment’.
Handing Taylor a prison sentence, Toby Prosser, Magistrates chairman, told her: ‘You appear to have a lack of remorse or recognition of any responsibility for the offence.
‘We are in a position where we have to stick to our guidelines and apply justice in the right way.’
Taylor was also ordered to pay £868 in costs and banned from driving for 31 months – which will be reduced if she completes a drink-drivers’ course.
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