RETIRED nurse Christine Turner was stopped by police while driving to hospital after a drinking binge, Macclesfield magistrates heard on Monday.

The court was told that Turner, aged 55, was on her way to visit her husband, who was suffering from cancer, when she was stopped.

Turner, from Whearton Farm, Woodhouse Ends, Gawsworth, had realised she should not have been driving.

She had turned around to go back home before reaching the hospital, and police saw her car mount a grass verge.

Turner pleaded guilty to driving while three times over the legal alcohol limit, was fined £1,000 and banned from driving for three years.

Magistrates said they were sympathetic, but she had been driving with a very high level of alcohol in her system at the time.

John Turner, defending, said the defendant was not blind to her drink problem, and over the years she had admitted herself to a psychiatric unit for treatment.

She had remained strong despite her husband undergoing an operation for bowel cancer, and had not been drinking until being told in January he was believed to be suffering from bone cancer.

She began ''binge drinking,'' he said, admitted herself to a psychiatric unit, but discharged herself too early and started drinking again.

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