A MUM was three times over the drink-drive limit when she was involved in a late night crash with her three children in her car, a court heard.

Hairdresser Alison Norris, 45, put the youngsters – aged ten, eight and five – in the car wearing their pyjamas when she drove away from her home.

But shortly afterwards, Winchester Crown Court heard, she lost control, left the road and collided with another car.

The children were not injured but what happened must have been “very alarming” to them, said Mr Justice Burnett.

Divorcee Norris had been drinking after an argument with her partner and when police arrived on the scene in Chandler’s Ford on December 30 last year, they asked her to take a breath test, which she failed.

Norris was taken to the police station where she failed a second test which revealed she was more than three times the limit.

She was found to have 108 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes. Norris, of Hursley Road, Chandler’s Ford, admitted driving with excess alcohol at a previous hearing. She was fined £500, with ten days in prison in default of payment, and banned from driving for three years. She was also told to pay a victim’s surcharge of £50.

Referring to the high reading and the accident, the judge said: “Nobody with that amount of alcohol in their blood could maintain control of a car and react to difficult circumstances which someone sober could do. The fact you had your three children in the car is a serious aggravating feature.

“It is difficult to fathom what led you, knowing you had too much to drink, to put your children in the car. But I am satisfied the justice of the case can be met with a disqualification and a fine.”

The court heard that if Norris attended a drink-drivers’ awareness course, she could have her disqualification reduced by a quarter.

Defence barrister David Richards said she was of previous good character with no previous convictions.