Tracey Cox was given a three-month suspended prison sentence and banned for three years after admitting drink driving and a separate incident of failing to provide a breath test after being stopped as she drove to pick her young daughter up from school.

Barnsley magistrates court heard sisters Emma and Helen Cox, aged 21, were so concerned their mum could be a danger to herself and others when they saw her clamber into her car after drinking a bottle of wine that they phoned the police.

Cox, aged 43, initially denied drink driving and claimed she had only gone to sit in her silver Mazda MX5 and had not intended to drive it.

She only changed her plea after being caught again behind the wheel, apparently drunk, and refused a breath test just three weeks later.

District Judge Michael Rosenberg said: "You eventually pleaded guilty to the first offence after maintaining your denial right up to the court doors when, in my view, you had no credible defence whatsoever.

"You were even prepared until the last moment to allow your own daughters, your own flesh and blood, to come to give evidence against you.

"I applaud your daughters' public spiritedness in contacting and reporting it to the police. They must have been on the horns of a dilemma and their actions, in my view, are to be admired."

Cox, a mum-of-four, formerly of Great Broad Ing, Redbrook, Barnsley, is a former Halifax Bank worker and is in the process of divorcing her third husband.

As well as the driving ban and suspended prison sentence Cox was placed under a 12-month supervision requirement, ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work and told to attend a drink-impaired drivers' programme.

The court heard the twin sisters had heard their mum return home at 9am after a night out and told how she was "banging about" the four bedroom detached home on the Barnsley estate.

The girls both believed she was drunk and watched in amazement as she left the house two hours later after swigging a bottle of wine and climbed into her car outside.

The court heard Cox was swaying backwards as she got into the car and then started it. The vehicle moved forward and appeared out of control before it stalled.

She started the car again and drove it towards the house almost running into the house wall before it came to rest near the driveway.

The prosecution said: "Both girls feared the worst. They formed the view she was about to drive off and realised she was in no fit state and called the police."

When breath tested she was two and a half times the drink drive limit.

Three weeks later she failed to notice a police car with flashing blue lights behind her as she drove to pick up her eight-year-old daughter from school.

Cox failed a roadside breathalyser test but then refused to give a second sample at the police station - and instead demanded mints.

Chris Peace, defending, said in the first incident the car only moved a short distance, never left the street and there was little risk to the public. He said she had had a lot to drink and remembered looking for her purse in the car but did not recall travelling anywhere in the vehicle.

He told the court that after her second arrest she spent a night in police cells.

He claimed she had been drinking and woke up late to pick up her eight-year-old daughter from school. He said she drove to pick her up because she felt under pressure because she had been involved in custody proceedings with the father for several years and did not want to give her ex-husband any ammunition.

He said she was at a low ebb because of the "unpleasant" divorce from her third husband, an engineer.

The court heard Cox had sought counselling and help from Alcoholics Anonymous, was taking anti-depressants and on an "even keel" again.

Cox, who now lives in Sheffield, has a 23-year-old son as well as three daughters.

Mr Rosenberg told her she had come to the "very periphery of being sent away" but after reading pre-sentence reports and a letter of support from her young daughter he was prepared to suspend the jail term.

He said of the second offence committed while on bail: "It beggars belief."


READ MORE
Your letters.
Today's features.
Latest sport.
Main news index.