Drunk driver blames her asthma

Catherine Dean was nearly three times over the limit when she was stopped by police after a four-mile chase in freezing conditions as she drove north on the southbound A1, one of Britain's busiest roads.

But although a court heard police found an open bottle of wine in her car, the mother-of-three walked free with a suspended sentence after a judge accepted her defence that she had suffered an asthma attack and only got behind the wheel to find a hospital.

Judge Dudley Bennett was condemned by road safety charity Brake, which described the decision not to jail Dean as 'outrageous'.