Driver's drink spiked by ex

A WOMAN who pleaded guilty to drink-driving has been able to keep her licence after proving that her drink was spiked by her ex-boyfriend.

Kelly Lucas, 30, from the Ipswich area, had pleaded guilty to drink-driving at the end of June.

But she claimed she was set-up by her ex-boyfriend Ian Brader, from Ipswich, who she said had spiked her glass of red wine.

After hearing evidence and reading an expert report, magistrates said they found her evidence “entirely credible” and she was given an absolute discharge in court on Wednesday.

Miss Lucas told the court that she had gone to Mr Brader's house in Ipswich on April 7 - her birthday - because he told her he had some of her items which he wanted her to pick up. When she arrived shortly after 8pm, he asked if she wanted a drink.

She said that when she went into the living room, she was directed to sit in a chair near a glass of red wine which had already been poured.

She drank about half of the wine and then told Mr Brader, who has previously been arrested for assaulting her, that she had to leave. But she told the court that he became “very agitated” and asked her to finish her drink.

“His voice was getting rather loud as well and I thought that to make things easy I would finish it and leave,” she said.

After leaving his house at about 8.45pm, Miss Lucas went to pick her 16-year-old disabled step-son up from a youth club. Shortly after 9pm, police officers received an anonymous 999 call from a man who said he had been talking to her and she “stank of alcohol” and was going to drive home. Later inquiries revealed that the call had been from Mr Brader.

When police officers stopped her in Eyke on the A1152 she was found to have 41mg of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35mg.

An expert report handed to magistrates' stated that the amount of alcohol she said she had consumed would not have resulted in her being over the legal limit.

John Hughes, representing Miss Lucas, said his client had been “set-up” by her ex-boyfriend.

“We feel that the only way there could have been 41mg is that the alcohol that he had poured before she arrived was in fact laced with some other alcohol,” he said.

Magistrates' agreed with this and handed Miss Lucas an absolute discharge.

Following the hearing Miss Lucas said she was incredibly relieved.

Working as a quantity surveyor and estimator, she needs her car for work. And along with having four children and a disabled step-son, a driving ban would have caused her serious difficulties.

“Everything would have been taken away if I was banned from driving,” she said. “It is a big relief.”