Published: Friday, 10th October, 2008 12:30
Woman driver's cocktail of booze
By Brian Hossack
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OVER LIMIT: Wendy Hamil.
A BOOZED-UP call centre worker downed Buckfast and super-strength cider hours before jumping into her car and driving along a busy Gourock street.
Greenock Sheriff Court heard how Wendy Hamil, 20, pictured, boasted to police she had downed booze just 10 minutes before being caught three times over the limit in Arran Road.
Depute fiscal Tom Smyth explained how police acting on an anonymous tip-off snared Hamil behind the wheel.
He said: “Officers received information and stopped the car which she was driving at around 1pm. She was the only person in the car at the time.
“She failed a roadside breath test and produced a very high reading to police. In view of this they asked her when she had consumed her last drink and she said ‘10 minutes ago’.
“The police then asked what she had drunk and she said ‘I had a glass of Frosty Jack and I had a glass of cider this morning, had a shower and went out and had some Buckfast’.”
During her appearance in the dock before Sheriff Vincent Canavan yesterday, Hamil, of Mount Stewart Drive, Wemyss Bay, admitted driving in Arran Road on 21 September this year with 102 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35ml.
Defence solicitor Aidan Gallagher said: “She works full-time and lives with her mother. With the level of the reading being taken into account, the court may wish to consider reports.”
Sheriff Canavan told Hamil he had grave concerns about the incident.
He said: “I was concerned about the high reading and what I have heard only reinforces these concerns. Buckfast tends to be drunk by the bottle rather than the glass.
“I will defer sentence for the preparation of reports.”
Hamil, who works at Becogent, was ordained to appear again in November to learn her fate.
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