A HORSE breeder caught drink-driving in a Jaguar with a tiny child in the front seat has failed in her bid to escape a driving ban.

Kelly Lowther, aged 36, claimed the bar staff at her local pub had “laced” her drinks by giving her more rosé wine in her wine and lemonade mixers than she realised.

Prosecution barrister Laura McBride read unchallenged evidence that police had been tipped off about a potential drink-driver and waited for more than half an hour outside the Jefferson Arms, Thorganby, before stopping Lowther as she started to drive home.

Her one-year-old son was sitting on her husband’s knee in the front passenger seat and she had glazed eyes and smelt of alcohol.

York magistrates rejected her claim, saying she had known how much she had drunk and banned her from driving for 16 months.

They also ordered her to pay nearly £1,000 in a fine and court costs.

Lowther, who with her husband breeds horses on a farm two and a half miles outside Thorganby, south of York, pleaded guilty to drink driving on June 27, 2014 and was represented in court by Richard Wright QC. She was fined £400 with a £40 statutory surcharge and £500 prosecution costs.

Giving evidence, Lowther said she had been socialising in the early evening at the Jefferson Arms when friends or relatives bought her three wine and lemonade mixers. She believed them to contain a small glass of rosé wine each.

She left one of them because she took her one-year-old son for a 45-minute drive to calm him down, but she drank the others.

Barmaid and friend Emma Greatorex said Lowther normally drank a large glass of wine in her wine and lemonade mixers, so she had poured large glasses of wine for her. She also “overpoured” for people she knew by giving them more than the standard measure, and she had done that for Lowther on June 27.

Defence pharmaceutical expert Professor Nicholas Birch said if Lowther had drunk two small glasses of wine, she would have been under the limit. He said her breath test reading of 58 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath could have been caused by three large glasses of wine.