THREE drunk drivers - one more than seven times the legal alcohol limit - have copped almost $6000 in fines between them in a single day at a Lake Macquarie court.
Kelli Bowen fronted Belmont Local Court for sentencing on Wednesday after pleading guilty to high-range drink driving on the Pacific Highway at Gateshead just after 11am on March 19.
The 46-year-old was pulled over by police due to her manner of driving that morning and recorded a blood alcohol reading of 0.356 after she was arrested.
"It's perhaps one of the highest readings that I've seen," magistrate Stephen Olischlager said on Wednesday.
"I've had to take a double check to see if I was misreading it."
Bowen was the third woman separately charged with high-range drink driving that came before Mr Olischlager for sentencing on May 1.
"I've said it perhaps more times than I've expected even today ... but alcohol will never be a crutch," Mr Olischlager told Bowen.
"It will bring you down."
Her defence solicitor detailed to the court Bowen's long history of health problems and trauma in her background.
"She does have some significant issues with alcohol that she's attempting to address through counselling," the solicitor said.
The solicitor told the court Bowen was "generally a person that does comply with the law".
Mr Olischlager sentenced Bowen to an 18-month good behaviour order, fined her $2000 and disqualified her driver's licence for six months.
"It could have ended so much more badly," he told her.
Bowen's good behaviour order included three charges of assaulting frontline emergency workers, relating to punching, kicking and "lashing out" at three paramedics that had been trying to help her.
Earlier that day, Mr Olischlager sentenced 45-year-old Angela Gai O'Reilly to an 18-month good behaviour order, fined her $1800 and disqualified her from driving for six months for high-range drink driving.
The mother had recorded a blood alcohol reading of 0.254, more than five times the legal limit, after driving in the Lake Macquarie area in the middle of the day.
Her defence solicitor also detailed to the court how O'Reilly had been seeking help for alcohol use and would continue to.
A third woman, Kylie Louise Forbes, also pleaded guilty to high-range drink driving after crashing her car while her passenger wasn't wearing a seatbelt at Lake Macquarie.
She copped a $2000 fine, an 18-month good behaviour order and six months off the roads.
She was further fined $500 for negligent driving and $350 for having an unrestrained passenger in the car.
The court heard of trauma in her background, and that she was a person with strong community ties.
The three women each had limited or no criminal histories, but Mr Olischlager said he saw "far too often" that "genuinely good people" made very bad decisions when it came to drinking then driving.
"Drink driving charges are far too prominent in the experience of the court," he said when sentencing O'Reilly.
"Public safety is such a concern to the court."
