Friend (more like sister) arrested

[notamumyetbutoneday]

I am in shock so excuse the muddled thoughts
i knew something was wrong as I hadn’t heard from my friend today. We text every day. I last heard from her at 5 o clock yesterday. No messages were delivering to her phone and her facebook account had gone. I messaged her pet sitter who said my friend had called her last night and asked her to had the pets unexpectedly.

at 3pm she rang to say she had been arrested at home last night and taken to a police station where she spent the night in custody

it’s insane it’s like a bad dream she wouldn’t do anything wrong she is a professional woman with an upstanding job

i was in shock I couldn’t speak her solicitor was driving her home

she was crying and couldn’t/wouldnt tell me what it was

shes with another friend now who lives closer who said she’s asleep

what on earth has happened I don’t understand why she would be arrested at home??

posting under an old username

It wasnt a one off it never is she will get a huge fine and lose her license and would you want to be a police officer knocking on someones door telling them their child or mother has been killed or is seriously ill in hospital and wont live,.

It's also possible that the drinking and driving was true but that there was more to the story. It seems more likely to me that the police would show up at her door three hours after the fact if there was more to the story. For ex. she hit another car on her way home and it was caught on camera.

It's not perjury, that's lying under oath in Court. Think about how many defendants change their plea to guilty before a trial - they aren't all then charged with perjury.

Lying about later consumption and delaying the process would probably be an aggravating factor for sentencing though.

So she was convicted of… getting a coat out of a car?? What on earth?

Yeah that’ll be it Parky 🙄

If she is claiming post driving drinking, they will have asked her in interview how much she had consumed, at what times, height, weight, what she'd had to eat and drink and so on, and they will have seized drinking vessels/bottles/cans from her home address that she claimed to have drunk from etc. They will then ask an analyst to do a 'back count' based on how much she said she had drunk after driving, against the time she was known to have driven, and will arrive at a calculation to determine if she was over the limit at the time of driving.

When you say she was 56, do you mean she was 56ugs? 35ugs is the limit for breath. She could easily get to 56ugs in 3 hours post driving, depending on how much she drank and how quickly.

It might come out that she hasn't done anything wrong if they do a back count.

If it's not perjury then it's perverting the cause of justice and impeding the police in the execution of their duties. Still not a good idea.

I didn't say it was!

You don't have to condone her actions to be a friend and be there for her, Op.

I just looked this up and, assuming that there was a drive home of, say 30mins, so the scenario was was a 50yo, average height/weight woman got back from a work event and cracked open the wine, she had had to have drunk almost the entire bottle (7.5units) in that 2.5 hour period to have that blood reading (56ugs)?

Was stunned by that, to be honest, as it would only make her 1.5x the legal limit despite the amount drunk. So unless OP’s friend states that this is exactly what she did (and can provide the police with the evidence of an empty bottle of wine) I think it is likely that they will have undertaken tests - blood and urine - at the station which are examined more forensically. (Was really fascinating reading!)

I don’t think they would have gone through all of that without pretty damning evidence from venue and maybe observations in ANPR on her route home? I’d be inclined to think she is downplaying too.

Absolutely!

So lesson to be learned always have an empty bottle of wine in the bin just in case the police come a knockin'! I will start horsing into a glass now just in case although I don't have to drive anywhere till Friday...

you could argue that for everything though.
e.g. bad weather affects driving, would you say the only amount of rain to drive in is none?

night affects visibility - would you say there is no safe time to drive at night?

having kids shouting in the back affects concentration and teens driving friends have higher accident rates - would you say the only safe amount of passengers are none?

same with tiredness, length of journey, etc etc.

You can be of the opinion that nobody should drive after drinking even the smallest amount of alcohol but it's currently perfectly legal in england and wales to consume up to a certain amount, or, in your words 'to have a bit.' So that person you know would be completely right, and the only person you know who is.

She was convicted of being in charge of a vehicle while over the limit. The police were just hanging about outside the bar to see who they could nab. Obviously no organised crime or drug deals happening thereabouts.

I think there must be an exemption for vehicles that are designed for sleeping in or something.

DP and I had a motorhome for a few years, and belonged to a scheme called Britstops, that gives details of all sorts of businesses where the owners allow you to stop there overnight for free.

Most of them are pubs, and we've left many a bar over the limit and spent the night in the van.

I think most people don't realise that being in charge whilst over the limit is an offence. Covers a range of scenarios eg sleeping in your car whilst drunk because you're locked out or similar.

However, I've a feeling that the onus is on the prosecution to prove intent to drive. I do now of someone who had his case dismissed because the Magistrates accepted that he had no intention of driving.

What do you mean don’t be ridiculous! It’s you that’s being ridiculous!
Do you live under a rock?

Of course we don’t have free speech in the UK anymore.
Our freedoms have been substantially eroded by successive authoritarian governments.

Happy to jail people for hurty words and yet release potential terrorists on bail.

Given your friends FB account has gone OP then maybe it’s just that she said something a fool found offensive. ✊

Decades ago there was an episode of the Bill where someone got off in court because of this defence.

Then more recently a drink driver hit Dh’s car parked on the road outside our house. Dh let this blatantly drunk woman into our house for a wee (after he’d dragged her out the car barely able to stand). I followed her and stood outside the bathroom door and then escorted her out again with this in mind. Sure enough she tried telling the police that she’d drunk alcohol in my house! I was very pleased to be able to say she hadn’t as the only time she was out my sight was when she was sat on the loo and I don’t keep alcohol in the bathroom. I had to give a statement. That lady blew 138! Police said she was close to a custodial sentence.

No, I don’t live under a rock. I am very well informed about current affairs, politics and governance. The conspiracists who chose to make a student politics level point based on nothing are the ridiculous ones in this scenario.

Have you read the updates? The friend has been arrested for drink-driving. Not hurty words, but using a lethal weapon while unfit.

I've put that in the list of Things Which Didn't Happen.

However if you say want to sleep in your car, you don't sit in the driver's seat.

Me too, I also give this advice as a healthcare professional. Some people can be over the limit on one drink believe it or not.

The coincidence of the Facebook account disappearing suggests there is some connection there, so possibly it was to do with something posted online but you may find out soon enough.

I think if your friend was drunk in a pub, the landlord would be entitled and perhaps even obliged to take her car keys off her. At a venue for a launch or similar, that probably isn't the staff's role, and they have a protocol of calling the police.
Hopefully you are right in believing that she doesn't make a habit of it, but sipping multiple glasses of wine over several hours is a very irresponsible way to behave when driving, and it's unlikely to be the first time. Lets hope she learns from this and deals with the issue.

If it was my friend I’d give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she did only have a few sips over the course of the night. Or maybe she made a mistake and feels absolutely awful about it. I’d support her, unless this is part of a pattern of behaviour or she doesn’t think she’s done anything wrong.

Then if she is a close friend, believe her story about having a drink at home. Sounds to me like someone is trying to set her up. I find it really hard to believe that police would go to her home, go in, breathalise and arrest her then keep her in custody all night purely on the say so of someone at an event just to get a drink driving conviction. If she has genuinely made a mistake your friend will need all the support she can get, so stay with her.