Drink-drive lawyer: I was put over limit by herbal tea

Her friend ‘made it with brewer’s yeast by mistake’

A LAWYER caught drink driving tried to dodge a ban by claiming herbal tea was to blame.

Louise Taylor, 41, who was almost four times the limit, was said to be driving ‘all over the road’ when stopped by police.

She admitted drinking wine at lunch but claimed home-made kombucha tea, given to her by a friend, must have taken her over the limit because it was made using ‘brewer’s yeast’.

She said she had no idea the fermented tea contained alcohol.

But magistrates, sitting in Llandudno, north Wales, dismissed her version of events and imposed an interim driving ban. Gareth Parry, prosecuting, said police

‘Eyes were red and glazed’

spotted Taylor driving her Range Rover, which has a personalised number-plate, erratically on the A55 near St Asaph at 8pm on April 22. Officers tried to pull her over for six miles, eventually activating their blue lights.

Constable Peter Doran said when Taylor, of Sandbach, Cheshire, finally stopped ‘her eyes were red and glazed, her speech slurred’. ‘She was very unsteady on her feet,’ he added.

A bottle of liquid was found inside the vehicle that smelt of alcohol. Officers breathalysed Taylor, who works as head of legal for an online finance firm, and she had 135mg of alcohol in 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35mg.

Mr Parry said: ‘The reading is so high you are entitled to conclude she must have known she had been consuming alcohol. The impairment was substantial.’

Taylor told police she had shared half a bottle of wine at lunch with a friend in Knutsford before heading to see another friend, Angela Morrison, in North Wales.

On arrival she told Mrs Morrison she had been diagnosed with coeliac disease, a problem which affects digestion, and her friend ‘brewed’ up a kombucha tea, which she said would help.

Kombucha is a herbal drink of fermented yeast and bacteria. Ashley Barnes, defending, said Mrs Morrison had used mushrooms and the wrong type of yeast – the brewer’s variety – for her concoction. Taylor said she drank two glasses of the ‘disgusting’ tea ‘in good faith’ but had no idea it was alcoholic. ‘I didn’t knowingly drink and drive,’ she added.

Taylor continued to drink from a bottle containing the tea after she left Mrs Morrison’s home

Mrs Morrison said she had used the wrong type of yeast in error and was so ‘horrified’ by what happened to her friend she poured the remaining liquid containing ‘vital’ evidence down the sink.

The court ordered an interim driving ban on Taylor, who will be sentenced next month.