South Tyneside cleaner convicted of drink driving after crashing into neighbour's car
A breath test showed that she was almost twice the legal booze limit.
A South Tyneside cleaner who crashed after boozing has been convicted of drink driving – despite claiming she touched barely a drop until afterwards.
Julie Walton, 44, hit a neighbour’s car in Church View, Boldon Colliery, and confessed to police she had been drinking between noon and 6.30pm, a court heard.
A breath test showed Walton was almost twice the legal booze limit, leading to her being charged with driving with excess alcohol on Sunday, October 5 last year.
Walton, also of Church View, made no mention to police of drinking after the accident but when her case came to court, she did.
She claimed she had drunk just a pint of lager at around noon while having lunch with a friend and had had three large vodkas at home after the smash.
But she was found guilty of drink driving after a trial at which she pleaded her innocence from the witness box but could provide no evidence of post-accident boozing.
Walton, who defended herself in court, has now been banned from the roads for 18 months by borough magistrates who said they did not find her story “convincing”.
She was also hit with fines and costs of £1,424 for her self-inflicted evening motoring mishap.
Prosecutor Sarah O’Neill said: “On the day in question, the police received a call to say a female who she was a neighbour with had crashed a car and caused damage.
“She appeared to be intoxicated. The defendant had been unable to supply insurance details and had left the scene.
“At 8.14pm police attended and were met by the woman whose car was hit who pointed them towards the defendant’s home.
“The defendant answered and said that she had been drinking from midday to evening time to prior to the accident.
“On the form the police fill out at the time, she said she consumed alcohol and didn’t say she had drunk any alcohol after she had driven.”
On police body-worn camera footage of her interaction with officers at home, which was played to the court, Walton made no reference to drinking vodka.
Cross examined by Ms O’Neill, Walton insisted he had consumed just one pint of lager with her lunch and claimed she would never drink and drive.
She said: “It’s not me. I’m a very law-abiding person.”
Walton, who gave a reading in breath for alcohol of 67mcg, against a legal limit of 35mcg, claimed she had had no more alcohol until returning to her flat after the accident.
She said she remembered pouring “a very large shot of vodka” which she downed in one go, before having two more, including one with a mixer.
When asked why she had not mentioned that to the police either at her home or at the police station after her arrest, she said, “I didn’t think”.
Magistrates told Walton the only way to prove her claim not to have driven while drunk was to have produced a specialist report around her post-motoring alcohol consumption.
Pronouncing her guilt, John Fleet, chair of the bench, told her she had not done that and that there were also “inconsistencies” in her evidence.
Walton was fined £553 and must pay £650 court costs and a £221 victim surcharge.