A drink-driver who picked up a child from school while more than twice the legal limit has been fined £1,500 and banned for three years.

Alena Bystricka, of North Shore Road, Ramsey, admitted the offence after failing a breathalyser test with a reading of 88. The legal limit is 35.

Magistrates also ordered the 37-year-old to retake her test at the end of the ban and attend a drink-driving rehabilitation course.

Prosecuting advocate James Robinson told the court that Bystricka was driving a Vauxhall Zafira from Bunscoill Rhumsaa on December 7. In the car with her was her mother and two children.

She dropped the children at home then drove to Ramsey Grammar School to pick up another child.

A member of the public reported that they thought she had been drinking and police stopped her on North Shore Road.

She was said to be smelling of alcohol, unsteady on her feet, and slurring her words.

After being arrested and taken to police headquarters she failed the breathalyser test with the reading of 88.

The court heard that she has no previous convictions.

A probation report said that Bystricka had moved to the island 18 years ago from Slovakia.

She told probation she had drunk alcohol four hours before driving and had believed she would be OK to drive.

The report said that Bystricka recognised she had made a ’grave error of judgement’ and was now working with Motiv8.

Defence advocate Ian Kermode said that his client had been drinking the evening before and then on the day of the incident which accounted for the 88 reading.

Mr Kermode asked for credit to be given for her guilty plea and handed in two references.

’She feels angry with herself,’ said the advocate. ’She had just been offered a job that required her to drive.’

Magistrates also ordered Bystricka to pay £125 prosecution costs.

She will pay all amounts at a rate of £20 per week.