Driver who ate alcoholic cake will be banned

A woman who claimed she had eaten Christmas cake laced with whisky is facing a drink-driving ban after a High Court ruling yesterday.

A woman who claimed she had eaten Christmas cake laced with whisky is facing a drink-driving ban after a High Court ruling yesterday.

Julie Wynne initially escaped an otherwise mandatory period of disqualification when magistrates in Nottingham believed her claim that she had not known the cake had been soaked in half a bottle of the drink.

But the 43-year-old, of Bulwell, Nottingham, was told yesterday she must face a period of disqualification after two High Court judges in London ruled the magistrates' decision last August not to impose a ban was "so unreasonable as to be perverse". Lord Justice Brooke, sitting with Mr Justice Morison, allowed an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions and sent the case back to the magistrates with a direction to impose an appropriate ban, the minimum period being 12 months.

The move will be welcomed by the Campaign Against Drinking and Driving (CADD), which criticised the magistrates' original decision, insisting "over the limit is over the limit".

At one stage in the hearing, Mr Justice Morison had inquired of counsel: "The evidence was she ate the cake rather than drank it?"