A FORMER campaigner against alcohol misuse has been banned from the roads for 10 years and given strict community sentences after being found drunk behind the wheel of her car twice in the space of three weeks.
In one incident, Eileen McArthur, a former senior planning officer for Focus On Alcohol Angus, was caught driving while almost five times the legal limit, and in the other she crashed her car. On both occasions she had been reported by the public to police because of how drunk she was.
McArthur, who now runs an event management firm, could have been jailed. Instead, she was handed the driving ban and Sheriff Kevin Veal also imposed an 18-month Community Payback Order and put her on an electronic tag restricting her to her home address from 9pm to 7am for six months.
McArthur, 47, of Glamis, pleaded guilty at Forfar Sheriff Court to driving in Forfar, and on other roads between Forfar and her home last August 19 with an alcohol count of 171 microgrammes in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35.
She further admitted driving or attempting to drive in Main Street, Glamis, near Forfar, on September 9 while unfit through drink or drugs.
Bob Bruce, defending, said: "Her marriage broke down and she was using alcohol as a crutch. Her life has been ruined by this. She may never find paid employment again."
Sheriff Veal said: "Other people have had to face domestic tragedies in their personal lives and relationships, but they do not then become a danger to the wider community by going behind the wheel of a car after she had been drinking to excess.
"As a former employee of the alcohol awareness project she perhaps should have been in a better position than most people to have an acute awareness of the risk to the public and the consequences of driving with excess alcohol."
Carole Whittingham, of the Campaign Against Drink Driving said: "I have heard of five-and-a-half times the limit, but have certainly never heard of that level for a female driver."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article