Drink-driver given suspended prison sentence after hitting pensioner in wheelchair

A 46-year-old woman driver who was almost four times over the legal limit of alcohol, has been given a suspended prison sentence, after magistrates heard she had hit a man in his eighties being pushed in his wheelchair by a carer.

Sally Ball of Wendover Close, Rippingale admitted driving with excess alcohol and careless driving, when she appeared at Boston Magistrates' Court on Wednesday.

Prosecuting, Paul Woods said that at around 3pm on August 9, Ronald Vivian, who is in his 80s, was being pushed in his wheelchair by his carer along High Street, and they were approaching the Bull Inn, when Mrs Ball, who had been drinking in the pub, turned left out of the car park in her Vauxhall Astra and hit them.

He said the wheelchair toppled over and fell under the car and the carer was thrown backwards, hitting her back and head.

Mr Vivian was taken to hospital for treatment to a large gash on his leg, said Mr Woods.

He said that when police attended they found Mrs Ball ‘so drunk she was hardly able to walk’ and ‘stank of alcohol’.

He said she told officers: “I can’t believe what’s happened. It’s my fault. I hit him.”

Mr Woods said she provided a positive breath test and was arrested, giving a sample of 133 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35ml.

He said Mrs Ball later told police she had visited the pub and a friend had bought her a drink and then left, but she had stayed on and drunk four large wines and a pint of cider and then had decided to drive to her home half a mile
away.

Mitigating, Michael Alexander said Mrs Ball was ‘absolutely ashamed’ at her behaviour’, adding that she knew the victim.

He said that ‘in her own head her drinking was manageable’ and she hadn’t drunk since the incident, which she admitted was ‘entirely her fault’.

He said that she herself had been the victim of a ‘very nasty incident’ five years ago and had refused any help and begun drinking as a result of it.

He said she had suffered from post traumatic stress disorder from that incident and so knew how Mr Vivian must be feeling.

Asking the magistrates not to impose an immediate custodial sentence, he said that would have no rehabilitation benefits at all, whereas a suspended sentence would help to keep her on the path.

The magistrates sentenced Mrs Ball to a 12 week prison sentence suspended for a year and ordered she undergo six months alcohol treatment and 10 days rehabilitation.

She was also banned from driving for three years but was offered the drink drivers rehabilitation course, which will reduce the period of the ban by 36 weeks, and ordered to pay £200 in costs and charges.