A woman over the drink-drive limit behind the wheel of her BMW at 4.30am claimed she'd only had two-and-a-half glasses of prosecco - and that her drinks had been spiked by mystery men. Xenna Valentina, 27, told cops drugs must have been slipped into her drinks when they were bought for her at a bar.
The recruitment consultant was stopped last month in her 116I M Sport A after she got lost while driving through Prestwich. Around 30 miles from her home, she tested one-and-a-half times the limit after failing a breathalyser test.
Officers witnessed Valentina making herself vomit while being held in custody.
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At Bolton Magistrates’ Court, mum-of-one Valentina, who is planning to set up an aesthetics business, said she was initially going to deny drink driving on legal advice, but later plead guilty to the charge.
She was fined £253 and banned from driving for a year. Valentina was offered a place on the drink-driving awareness course which, if completed, will see her return to the road by January 2024.
Gurdit Singh, prosecuting, said: "In the early hours of the morning on March 6, 2023, police officers in the Moore Lane area of Prestwich noticed a grey sports BMW driving on the Bury New Road towards Cheetham Hill.
"The vehicle indicated to turn left on a number of occasions but did not make a turn. The defendant, who was on her own in the car, eventually turned left. The officers assumed that she was lost and so pulled her over.
"When she was questioned by the attending officers she confirmed that she was lost.
''The officers asked if she had been drinking and she admitted that she had a couple of drinks. She was given a road side test which showed positive. She was taken to a nearby custody suite where she measured a reading of 50mg of alcohol in 100ml of breath, the legal limit is 35mg.
"At 6.20am custody officers noted that the defendant made herself vomit a number of times by sticking two fingers down her throat. She kept claiming that she had been spiked by men that were buying her drinks all night. She said she would provide a blood specimen, but this was never produced."
Valentina, of West Yorkshire, has no previous convictions and had a clean licence prior to the offence. At one stage during the proceedings, she even attempted to claim the medication she was using to treat her new teeth had caused her to be over the alcohol limit.
But after changing her plea, Valentina, who represented herself after falling out with her previous solicitor, said “I am sorry, it will never happen again.”
She added: “I felt well before I got in the car but started to have a bad turn when I tried to turn left. I only had two and a half glasses of prosecco but realise I shouldn’t have got in the car in the first place.
“This other solicitor was trying to make me out as something I was not, trying to get me to plead not guilty all the time. I did have my teeth done recently and I've been using this alcoholic medication and I thought it could have been that.
''I am a single mother to a three year old little boy. The father never sees him. I am half way through setting up an aesthetics business, but that will have to wait now.”
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