AIBU to think I can fight this? Mumsnetters I need your help!

[FigureItOutNow]

Please be gentle with me - I'm very stressed over this!
Sorry it'll be a long post but bear with me.

Last week my divorce from a very abusive husband was finalised. I'm late 20s with 3kids under 7 from this man. As part of the abuse he completely isolated me from my family.
Anyway my younger sister has some friends in a nearby big city - she said if I could find a sitter she'd come to this city and we could go out with some of her friends to celebrate (I have no friends at the moment). My neighbours 20year old daughter offered to babysit overnight as long as I was back by 9 as she had work later that day.

On the night out I drove up to city with intention that if I wasn't in a fit state to drive back home by 8am next morning I would get a taxi back home and then come back with my kids on the train ( they love trains) to pick up my car so I parked it somewhere where I knew I wouldn't be charged if I had to leave it at 8am.

On night out I managed to drink far more than I could handle (easy as I haven't drank in years due to abusive ex being controlling). I started feeling really sick at about midnight (2hours into the night) and somehow got split from my sister and her friends. I was feeling really crap and decided to go sleep in my car. I messaged my sister and told her where I was and she said that's fine they'll get me from the car on the way back to her friends.

I was fast asleep in passenger siding my car but alarm kept going off and someone called the police. They came at about 3am and it took them about 5min to wake me up as I was so gone. Anyway they started trying to say that I was drink driving and I said how could I be drink driving if I'm fast asleep in the passenger side? Lots of yeah but you were planning to weren't you/stop lying/ tell the truth type of statements. I was so upset at this point called my sister and had her confirm our plans, even showed them our messages with our plans to go back to her friends.
There were 4 police officers at this point and I could hear discussing if they could charge me with drink driving to which one of them said no but they could charge with being drunk and in charge of a vehicle. They came and told me that they were arresting me for this charge. They asked me to breathalyser but I refused as I was paranoid they were trying to frame me for drink driving (I know I know but I was really drunk and this was a stupid thought process) and I asked them so many times why they wanted to breathalyser me when I had openly admitted that I was drunk and NO INTENTION at all of driving but was waiting on my sister and her friends.

Anyway they arrested me - so so so distressing for me as I've been driving since I was 18 never had a parking/speeding/any ticket whatsoever as I'm one of those annoying people that follows the law to T as I'm terrified of getting arrested (oh the irony).

In the end I spent the night and most of the day in cells, they dropped all charges except the one of failure to cooperate by refusing to breathalyser so please mumsnetters help me figure out if I can fight this. I'm a lone parent and I work in the healthcare industry so could potentially lose my job over this as my solicitor said it would come up as a criminal record in all my pre-work checks!!!

I don't understand why the officer never said it was a criminal offence to refuse the breathalyser, when he asked me to do it and I said I didn't understand why he was asking me to do it he said that he was asking me to do it and that was all the reason he was giving

Maybe she could argue that she honestly believed the police where trying to frame her for being 'drunk in charge of a car'?

How would that help? She was drunk in charge of a car. so they couldn't be framing her, and all she'll do is make herself sound even more drunk and belligerent. And not at all remorseful.

And falsely accusing the police of trying to frame her would not go down well at all

It's a fait accompli then?

Well to be honest, unless there is more info missing, yes.

At this stage it has nothing to do with what happened beforehand, it has to do with OP's refusal to give a sample.

With regard to the sentencing guidelines, it is clear that it was a deliberate refusal. It is possible there may be some discussion between the magistrates as to whether it could be a sincerely held belief that she didn't have to. There are two problems to this, firstly it is very unlikely the police didn't warn her at the time that it is an offence not to give a sample (and there will likely be a record of that) and secondly whether or not it is believed that she is telling the truth when she says she genuinely didn't think she had to. It is not uncommon for people to lie in court and say they didn't mean to / are sorry / didn't think they had to etc.

In the event the sentencing bench did think that it was deliberate AND she had a genuine belief etc then those two factors would cancel each other out.

Remember too that magistrates are just ordinary people, yes picked for our ability to make reasoned decisions among other things but we are human so sometimes different benches may give different results.

Have to say I'm pretty shocked by the levels of ignorance of the law displayed by many posters on this thread, not just the OP.

Seriously, educate yourselves. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. I'm reminded of a thread about using your mobile when driving where loads of posters got really shitty when it was pointed out by me and others that you shouldn't be using your phone (unless handsfree) in your car unless you were parked at the side of the road/ engine off. Yet they insisted being stationary in traffic was fine...

OP, I can't see anything wrong with the advice your solicitor has given you. Concentrate on any mitigation arguments that may reduce the length of the ban/ fines.

For future reference, never sit, sleep or anything else in a car alone and drunk, with the keys in your possession because you open yourself to a drunk in charge accusation. Irrespective of what you may claim your intentions were.

"Why didn't you go straight for a taxi instead and get yourself home to the babysitter (who needed you back) and your children? This was your original plan any way wasn't it, to get a taxi if you weren't in a 'fit state' to drive?"

This ^

Why didn't you just get a taxi home instead of happing a nap in the car?

How are you doing Op? Hope you're ok.

Imo the OP's story is a bit convoluted and it absolutely looks as if she was planning to sleep off her excesses in the car and then drive home. Otherwise she would have got a taxi home. And the police thought so too. It was a fair cop, I think.

Sounds like a fair cop. You will be convicted but can fight for a lenient penalty . . Maybe a big fine but no ban by having your solicitor explain how you children will be affected if you lose your job etc. No promises but I have seen this happen in mags court several times.