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A 44-year-old woman who drove three-and-a-half times over the limit without a local license and bought an alcoholic drink while police inspected her vehicle has been jailed for four weeks.
Shelley Louise Day blew 124mcg per 100ml of breath at a roadside test and blew 122mcg around two hours later at the police station.
The legal limit is 35mcg.
She pleaded guilty to both offences which were committed on 30 March near the airport and appeared before the Magistrate’s Court for sentencing yesterday.
Day was also disqualified from driving for four years.
Crown Advocate Fiona Russell said a police patrol spotted her car driving slowly and swerving around a road sign at around 21:30 on Le Bourg, following it as she pulled into the Happy Landings.
Officers smelled perfume as they approached her, and she said she was collecting her partner.
Day was then allowed to go inside the pub to look for her partner, but she later returned with a half-drunk double vodka and coke in her hand.
Police noted she was unsteady on her feet and arrested her after a breathalyser test.
Day also only held a UK driving license, saying she hadn’t exchanged it to a local one after moving to the island.
Pictured: Day appeared in the Magistrate's Court yesterday.
Advocate Sam Steel, defending, said Day “knew she was over the limit” but believed her tolerance because of her alcohol dependency meant she would be capable of driving.
But he said she accepts it was a “foolish and reckless” decision to get behind the wheel.
Advocate Steel added that Day is now taking steps to address her alcoholism but said the police shouldn’t have allowed her to leave the vehicle for the bar as she sought out a drink to “calm her nerves”.
He said the breath reading of 122mcg should be taken “with a pinch of salt” due to her consuming that drink just moments before the arrest.
Judge Marc Davies noted the mitigation but said he was bound by a decision of the Royal Court for drink driving cases where the 110mcg limit is exceeded.
He also said he was “struggling to understand why you were allowed to wander into the bar and get a drink”.
Day posed a “real and obvious danger on the roads.
“At those levels you and your car are a dangerous weapon.”
He sent her to Les Nicolles for four weeks and suspended her from driving for four years, saying there must be a deterrent.
No additional penalty was applied for driving with an incorrect license.
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