An aspiring pilot has been caught driving a car while more than five times the legal drink-drive limit.
Juanita Smith, who had hoped to gain a licence to fly at the end of 2025, was spotted driving in a “particularly careful and cautious” fashion by police in Inverness.
When officers stopped her on the city’s Glebe Street she failed a roadside breath test.
Smith, 22, appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court to admit a single charge of drink-driving in relation to the incident on October 18 of last year.
A sheriff said she was surprised Smith could even walk to her car, “let alone drive”.
‘Careful and cautious’ driving
Fiscal depute Robert Weir told the court it was 12.45am when officers spotted her vehicle.
He said: “There was no problem with the driving, they thought the driving was particularly careful and cautious”.
Smith failed a roadside breath test and was arrested, further testing confirmed her breath alcohol level to be 118 microgrammes per 100ml of breath – more than five times the limit of 22 microgrammes.
Solicitor Marc Dickson, for Smith, said at the time of the incident his client had recently been “the unfortunate recipient of a criminal act” which had led her to being “upset and nervous” about going out unaccompanied.
He said, on the night in question, Smith, who works in hospitality, had been visited by a friend who has come to “offer her some support”.
Smith had drunk alcohol with no intention of driving, but when her friend announced their intention to walk home alone she took the decision to offer a lift – an act Mr Dickson described as “a foolish undertaking”.
The defence agent said the inevitable ban would have an impact on the South African woman’s work and added that it was also likely to impact her efforts to gain a private pilot’s licence – something she had been hoping to achieve by the end of 2025.
He said: “She bitterly regrets the position she finds herself in.”
Ban for five times the limit drink-driver
Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald told Smith: “You were driving whilst five times the legal limit for alcohol, it is surprising you could even walk to your car to get into it, never mind drive. I’m not surprised you were driving very carefully.”
She banned Smith from the roads for 16 months, with the option to reduce that period by four months by completing a self-funded drink-drivers rehabilitation scheme course.
Noting that her choice of sentence was “because of the high level of your reading, Sheriff MacDonald also fined Smith, whose address was given on court papers as Darrochside Place, Inverness, £580.