A 32-year-old Bath woman who admitted driving while more than four times over the legal alcohol limit on Wellsway has been given a suspended jail sentence.
Photo © Avon & Somerset Police
Prosecutor Giles Tippett told Bath magistrates last Wednesday, 15th April, that at 6.30pm on 4th January, an off-duty police officer was a passenger in a car being driven by her partner when there was a near-collision with a black Mini Cooper which was on the wrong side of the road.
They followed the Mini, and when it stopped, the off-duty officer saw Ashleigh Ball in the driver’s seat, with the engine still running.
Ball was slurring her words and repeating herself and the off-duty officer could smell alcohol.
Police attended and Ball took a roadside breath test, which revealed 174 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath.
Ball was arrested and taken to Keynsham Police Centre where the lower of two evidential readings was 163. The legal limit is 35.
Mr Tippett said it was “luck over judgement” that Ball had not caused an accident as she was “clearly highly intoxicated”.
Representing Ball, solicitor Ned Kemp said the Probation Service had recommended an 18-month community order with an alcohol treatment requirement and rehabilitation activity requirement (RAR) days.
Mr Kemp said it had been hard for Ball to internally accept she has an alcohol problem and that the pre-sentence report from the Probation Service highlighted that she had “limited insight” into her offending.
However, working with the Probation Service she could get the tools she needed, he added.
He said Ball was of previous good character and has some mental health issues.
Delivering their sentence, magistrates said the offence was so serious – with a very high alcohol reading, evidence of bad driving and failure to accept responsibility – that only a custodial sentence could be justified. They jailed her for 18 weeks, suspended for 18 months.
They also imposed an alcohol treatment requirement under the direction of the Probation Service for nine months and told Ball she must complete up to 10 RAR days.
At a court hearing in February, when Ball admitted the charge, magistrates had imposed an interim driving ban. Last Wednesday they disqualified her from driving for 36 months, which will be backdated to the start of the interim ban.
The length of the disqualification will be reduced by 25% if Ball undergoes a drink-drive rehabilitation course.
She was also ordered to pay £85 costs to the Crown Prosecution Service and a court surcharge of £154.
