A MOTHER who crashed her car while more than five-and-a-half times the drink drive limit has walked free from court.

Glenna Noble had to be carried from her car after careering into a hedge in the early hours of a Sunday morning.

And when she got to the police station the 40-year-old human resources worker, who was dressed in just pyjama bottoms and a pink T-shirt, couldn't stand up.

A sample of blood taken more than two hours after the crash found she was more than five-and-a-half times the limit one of the highest levels ever for a woman.

But magistrates told Noble that her case was exceptional and they decided not to impose a custodial sentence.

Pressure group the Cam-paign Against Drinking and Driving condemned the sentence saying: "She should have been locked up. It beggars belief."

Harry Cate, a director of CADD, said "It could just as well have been a bus stop she hit and not a hedge, it could have been anything.

"Whether it was four in the morning or four in the afternoon, it doesn't matter."

Jane Pattison, prosecuting, told magistrates in Swindon that police were called to the Ford Puma in Swinley Drive at 4am on July 18 after a member of the public spotted it in a hedge.

Miss Pattison said: "An officer knocked on the window and said Noble was sitting with the seatbelt on 'smiling like a Cheshire cat'.

"She was asked if she could get out but she just smiled.

"She couldn't move her limbs.

"She was totally unco-ordinated and had to be physically carried to the police vehicle nearby."

When she got to the police station she could not stand up and when it became clear she couldn't provide a sample of breath for testing, an ambulance was called.

Miss Pattison said "At 6.15am, just over two hours after she was found in the vehicle, a blood sample was taken.

"It was found to contain not less than 442 milli-grammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit is 80 milligrammes."

Martin Wiggins, defending, said that Noble, of Wensley-dale Close, in Eastleaze, west Swindon, had been suffering from depression.

Noble, he said, had been married for 16 years and had a 15-year-old daughter, but the relationship broke down early last year.

She started a new relationship with a colleague and bought a house with him, but that partnership broke down in the spring and she moved out.

Mr Wiggins said she had been through a breast cancer scare in February when she underwent a lumpectomy and was hospitalised in June after taking on overdose of paracetamol and alcohol.

After she pleaded guilty to drink driving magistrates ordered her to do 240 hours of community service, banned her from the road for three years and ordered her to pay £50 costs.

As she left the court Noble refused to comment on the outcome of the case.

Tina Clarke