A Moray mum has admitted leaving a youngster home alone after being caught driving while almost five times the alcohol limit.
Karolina Stopinska, who lives in Elgin, told police her house was unoccupied when she was stopped near her home.
However, the town’s sheriff court heard yesterday that when officers visited the property the following morning they discovered a nursery school age child.
Stopinska, whose address was given as 6 Barmuckity Lane, was charged with drink-driving on Friday, June 19.
The 25-year-old also admitted willfully abandoning a child in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury overnight between June 19-20.
Fiscal Ross Carvel said a member of the public contacted the police after noting Stopinska behaving erratically in her car.
The fiscal said: “A man asked the accused to stop revving the engine of her car outside her home and asked her whether she had been drinking.
“The accused replied ‘no, have you?’.
“When the police arrived they breath-tested the accused, who gave a reading of 96 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath.
“When asked if there were any children in the property, the accused said no.
“After being arrested, she repeatedly asked to go home for medication, but made no mention of the child..”
At 8am the next morning officers went to Stopinska’s home to retrieve some medication for her and found the youngster awake and alone.
Stopinska’s agent, solicitor Robert Cruickshank, said: “She had consumed alcohol, and – it’s fair to say – to excess.
“This behaviour was very out of character.”
Sheriff Peter Grant-Hutchison fined Stopinska £300 in and banned her from the road for 18 months.
He also told her she had showed “considerable recklessness” in abandoning the child.