A north-east lawyer has been fined £600 and banned from the road for 20 months after she was caught behind the wheel while more than three times the legal alcohol limit.
Linda Beedie – who was described in court as a successful businesswoman in Aberdeen – downed wine and shots before getting into her car and driving across the city-centre earlier this year.
When police stopped her on an unrelated driving matter on Wallfield Place on August 10, they discovered she had 127 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35mcg.
Beedie appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court yesterday after admitting the offence.
The 53-year-old said she could not remember much about the incident, but accepted she should not have got into the driver’s seat of a car after consuming so much alcohol.
Sheriff Noel MacPartlin said he would have fined Beedie – of Flat 1, 215 Rosemount Place, Aberdeen – £900, but would reduce it to £600 because of her early plea.
He also banned her from driving for 20 months, saying this would be reduced by five months if she undertook a drink drivers rehabilitation course at her own expense.
Fiscal depute Pauline Oakley made a motion to forfeit Beedie’s car, a BMW 3 series.
But Sheriff MacPartlin rejected the request, saying it was not in the public interest as Beedie’s brother had purchased the vehicle and she was paying him off.
Solicitor, Liam McAllister, said his client had shown “genuine remorse” for what she had done and that it had been a one-off, isolated incident and “out of character”.
He said Beedie had been through a lot in recent years, having suffered from breast cancer and now arthritis which restricted her walking.
The solicitor said she had recently started up her own business and was highly thought of in the community.
“She is deeply embarrassed by her conduct,” he said.