A cabaret singer has been banned from the road for 20 months after being caught drink-driving on the way home from a gig.
Hannah Smith, from Stockport, was more than twice the legal alcohol limit when she was stopped for swerving with a buckled wheel at 4am. The 33-year-old claimed the wheel of her vehicle was damaged when another car accidentally crashed into her in the moments earlier.
Smith, who works as an administrator for Stepping Hill Hospital and runs her own entertainment business, pleaded guilty to driving with 85 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath - more than twice the legal limit of 35mg. She broke down in tears at Tameside Magistrates Court as she was hit with a driving ban.
Mr Shahid Khan, prosecuting, said that an uniformed officer was in a marked police car driving on Mercian Way in Stockport at 4.37am on June 25 when he noticed Smith’s Ford Focus ST swerving on the road.
“The defendant did not appear to have proper control of the vehicle so he activated his emergency equipment causing the defendant to stop,” Mr Khan told the court. “Upon exiting the vehicle she told the officer that someone had hit her vehicle causing her to swerve.
“Her speech was slurred and the smell of intoxicants was coming from inside the vehicle. Due to what she told him and his observations he asked for a roadside sample of breath and the reading was 94 micrograms of alcohol in 100ml breath at the roadside.
“She was arrested and taken to the police station for an evidential test. The lowest reading was 85 micrograms of alcohol in 100ml of breath above the legal limit. The defendant has no previous convictions so she has lost her good character. The officer observed her swerving on the road. An example of poor driving is an aggravating feature.”
Smith, of Beechurst Road, Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, was also fined £276 and was ordered to pay £195 in costs and victim surcharge. In mitigation, her solicitor Peter Green said: “She thought she was OK to drive.
“She’d had about three drinks but said she'd been hit by another car which buckled the wheel which is why the car was swerving. She gave that explanation at the scene. She smelled of drink and fully complied with the drink-drive procedure.”
He added: “She is obviously devastated by this. This is the first time she has been before a criminal court. She is a lady of good character but she's going to lose that character today and she knows that.
“She knows she's going to be disqualified as well. It's going to have a massive impact. She uses the car to get to work for the NHS at Stepping Hill, where she is an administrator.
“She's also a part-time DJ and sings in the pubs as well. She was doing that on the night at Hazel Grove on the night she was stopped. She'd had a couple of drinks throughout the night and thought she was OK to drive.
“She did not intend to drive the car home but she realised she had made a foolish decision to get in the car because she needed to get the car back home to her parents who were going to see her brother who was in Salford hospital."
Mr Green said his client's brother had a brain haemorrhage for which he has had 17 operations and Smith has played a large part in helping him to get to hospital appointments.
“It was the wrong decision to drive and no one knows more fully than her at this point in time," the solicitor said. "That's the kind of person she is. It was completely out of character. It was the wrong choice.
“Unfortunately, she was hit by a car. That led to police getting involved and going into the area. That also explains the swerving as well. We have to accept that the reading at the roadside was high, and it was a high reading at the police station as well. That's the situation, warts and all, she fully accepts that."
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