A MOTORIST who drank heavily while suffering from depression and stress today has a four-month prison sentence hanging over her head.

Linda Jane Whiteley, 45, was nearly four times the drink-drive limit when she narrowly missed colliding with a police car at a York roundabout.

A second vehicle also had to brake sharply to avoid a crash, said Valerie McMinn, prosecuting.

Whiteley was on bail after being caught driving at three times the drink-drive limit. Six weeks earlier, police had found her in a "distressed state" on a grass verge. Members of the public alerted them to her erratic driving in a damaged car.

"I think she is a menace on the roads," said district judge Michael Rosenberg. But because she had "every reason" from "very real personal problems" to be under stress and because of her mental health, he could "exceptionally" not send her straight to jail.

At York Magistrates Court, he gave Whiteley a four-month jail sentence suspended for 15 months, banned her from the roads for three years, ordered her to take a driving test and made her pay £55 court costs.

He called her a woman of the "utmost good character and spotless reputation." But he added: "You have come within a hair's breath of being sent to immediate custody today. It is right the public in general should know that."

Whiteley, of York, pleaded guilty to drink-driving at the Malton Road and Stockton Lane roundabout on October 20 and in Stockton Lane on September 9.

Unlike most drink-drivers, the court refused her the chance to reduce her ban by going on a drink-drive rehabilitation course.

The court heard that at times, Whiteley drank brandy heavily to deal with anxiety.

For Whiteley, Sandra Keen said her client had "enormous problems". But she was a caring woman who helped others and suppressed her own needs, instead of putting herself first.

She had no doubt drunk when taking anti-depressants and on an empty stomach.

She had been distraught when she was caught drink-driving for the second time.

Mr Rosenberg read reports from the probation service, Whiteley's doctor and an independent counselling and advice service.