Anne Hart, a Scottish procurator fiscal (public prosecutor to those of us from south of the border) caught drunk behind the wheel after she downed a quarter bottle of vodka has been acquitted.

Her BMW blocked traffic as she sat drinking the vodka after being booted out of the marital home by her husband hours earlier. She was found by police slumped at the wheel. Although Hart admitted to being in charge of a vehicle while over the drink drive limit, her solicitor successfully argued that she had not intended to drive, and had placed the car keys in the passenger side footwell as a precaution.

Margaret Dekker, spokeswoman for the Scottish Campaign Against Irresponsible Driving (SCID), said: “This is an astonishing decision. Does this mean that everyone up on drink driving charges will use this excuse now? She has had plenty of time to think of her defence. It sends out the wrong message completely, especially as the drink driving figures have not gone down for a decade. What happens now when she prosecutes a drink driver? She will be very biased towards them, and I hope that she will never be allowed to do so ."

Ironically Hart was part of the prosecution team which put Britain’s worst drink driver, John Williamson, behind bars and resulted in him being given nine life bans in 2006.

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