Ross-shire mum drove children home from nursery while five times the limit

A mother of two collected her children from nursery and then drove over five miles to her home while almost five times the legal drink-drive limit.

Inverness Sheriff Court heard that 37-year-old Kerri Mackintosh of Golf Course Road, Strathpeffer was seen by her mother to stumble out of her vehicle.

Fiscal depute Adele Gray told Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald that Mackintosh, who admitted one similar previous conviction for a drink-related motoring offence, had gone to pick up her five year old and two year old from a nursery in Dingwall in the afternoon of June 26 this year.

She said: "She appeared to staff as being loud and more bold and she smelled of alcohol or hand sanitizer."

Ms Gray said that the concerned staff then arranged for the police to be contacted and officers traced her to her house.

"Her mother saw her stumble out of the car before the police arrived. When officers spoke to her, she denied she had been under the influence of alcohol."

But a test at Burnett Road Police Station an hour and a half later showed she had been drinking and subsequent analysis of her blood showed she had 106mcgs of alcohol when the maximum is 22mcgs.

She admitted drink driving at an earlier hearing when sentence had been deferred for a background report.

SHERIFF EILIDH MACDONALD: "If you carry on in this way, someone will be seriously injured or killed. It is up to you to sort out your problem."

Defence solicitor Graham Mann said: "She has a problem. She appreciates this is a serious matter and the reading is pretty high."

Fining Mackintosh £640 and disqualifying her for three years, Sheriff Macdonald told her: "You have a serious problem. This was very dangerous behaviour for you and your children.

"If you carry on in this way, someone will be seriously injured or killed. It is up to you to sort out your problem."