A WOMAN who drove the wrong way round a roundabout while over the drink drive limit has been disqualified from driving for 20 months.

Karen Wilkinson, 49, of Balmoral Avenue, Crosland Moor, pleaded guilty to the offence yesterday at Kirklees Magistrates’ Court.

Prosecutor Abdul Shakoor said the offence had taken place on Church Street, Paddock, at 12.45am on December 16.

He said police officers were in a marked patrol vehicle which had to brake sharply when Wilkinson’s Ford KA pulled out of a side road.

Observing that she had driven the wrong way round the roundabout they pulled her over and when interviewed smelled alcohol on her breath.

Tests showed she had 83 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes, making her more than twice over the limit.

In mitigation, Roger Clapham, said it was a “sad situation. She knows she is going to lose her driving licence.”

He said the defendant had been under a high degree of stress at the time of the offence after trying to put a stop to a scam in which fraudsters were attempting to swindle her elderly parents out of their house.

They had got them to write two wills.

On the day in question she had been to visit them and had then bumped into an old school friend and gone for a drink.

He said: “She felt all right to drive and set off. She took the short cut to the roundabout and was stopped by the police.”

He said she was shocked at the alcohol reading and although she had co-operated fully with the police had been handcuffed at one point in the proceedings.

Mr Clapham said the inevitable driving ban would mean she would have to catch four buses to get to work for what was a mere 10-minute journey by car.

He added that it was a relatively short distance that she had driven at the time of the offence and she wished him to “apologise to the court for her foolish behaviour.”

Chairman of the bench Presley Douglas imposed a ban of 20 months but said this could be reduced by 152 days subject to her completing a satisfactory course on the perils of drink driving.

He said an aggravating factor was Mrs Wilkinson’s driving the wrong way round the roundabout.

In addition she was ordered to pay £305 including a £200 fine and costs payable at £10 per week.