Drink-driver banned despite diet claim (From The Northern Echo)

Drink-driver banned despite diet claim

8:58am Saturday 6th February 2010

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A WOMAN who blamed a condition triggered by the Atkins diet for putting her over the drink-drive limit has been banned from the roads.

Jacolyn Tracy Wilcox, from Coundon, County Durham, appeared before Bishop Auckland Magistrates’ Court yesterday where she was sentenced for driving with excess alcohol on August 6, last year.

Wilcox, 45, from Collingwood Street, initially pleaded not guilty to the offence. She said a condition called ketosis, triggered by the extreme low-carbohydrate diet she was following at the time, had caused her body to produce its own alcohol.

But she changed her plea to guilty during a hearing on Tuesday, after a medical expert said the condition would only produce a small measure of alcohol.

Alison Nunn, prosecuting, told the court that a vehicle being driven by Wilcox was stopped by police in Toft Hill, near Bishop Auckland, after officers noticed it swerving round parked cars on the A68, at about 4pm.

Wilcox was found to have 112mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood, a reading which was later lowered to 108mg in response to the ketosis claim.

Stephen Andrews, in mitigation, said: “My client pleaded not guilty on the basis that she may well have had a defence, and it had to be explored by medical experts.”

Wilcox was banned from driving for 36 months, but took up the offer of the drinkdrivers’ rehabilitation course to reduce the disqualification by a quarter. She was given a nine-month community order with supervision and ordered to pay £200 towards court costs.

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