A POSTAL worker who was almost four times over the drink-drive limit when she went shopping at Skipton Morrisons after work has been ordered to carry out 200 hours unpaid work and banned from driving for three years.

Sarah Cox, 48, of Sharphaw Avenue, Skipton, pleaded guilty to drink-driving on September 3 when she appeared at Skipton Magistrates Court on September 23. She had 139 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35.

She was given an interim driving ban and sentencing was adjourned for reports to Harrogate Magistrates Court where on October 20 she was given a community order requiring her to carry out six months alcohol treatment. She will also have to complete up to 30 rehabilitation activity requirement days and carry out 200 hours unpaid work.

She was also banned from driving for 36 months and ordered to pay costs of £85 and a surcharge of £114. If she completes a drink drivers rehabilitation course, her ban will be reduced by 36 weeks.

At the earlier hearing in Skipton, the court heard that Morrisons staff had refused to sell Cox alcohol and the manager had followed her out to the car park where she was standing next to her car with the keys.

She had drunk 'vast quantities' of alcohol before driving to Morrisons to buy some food to cook a meal for someone she had just met.

Cox, was supported in the Skipton court by a Post Office union representative, was recently divorced, had a lot of debt and major issues in her life and described herself as a ‘binge-drinker’.