Caprice loses drink-drive appeal

Caprice had drunk "a great deal of wine", the court heard

Model Caprice has lost her appeal against a drink-driving ban and been banned from driving for 12 months.

The 34-year-old, full name Caprice Bourret, had admitted drinking but blamed the incident on drugs she was taking for a urinary infection.

A district judge ruled that she failed to prove she should be excused from a ban because of medical circumstances.

Caprice said afterwards she respected the judge's decision, and warned other drivers not to repeat her mistake.

"Hopefully people will learn from my regretful experience," she said. "Do not drink and drive. That's all I have to say."

Caprice was ordered to pay £2,500 costs and told that if she undertook a drink-drive rehabilitation course her ban would be shortened to nine months.

She was a drunk driver who must have known that she was at risk of being over the limit. District judge Emma Arbuthnot Rare failure for 'Mr Loophole'

Sentencing her also to a £1,000 fine, the judge said she had tried to hide from police that she had been drinking.

District judge Emma Arbuthnot, at Highbury Magistrates' Court, said: "She was a drunk driver who must have known that she was at risk of being over the limit.

"That must have been very obvious to her from the large amounts of alcohol she drank that day. She drank, took the risk and got caught."

'Alcohol halitosis'

Caprice was found to be one-and-a-half times the legal drink-drive limit when she was stopped in Tottenham Court Road, central London, on 10 December 2005.

The judge said she had lied to the police officer who had stopped her car when she said she had drunk a glass of wine one and a half hours earlier.

"Ms Bourret had had a great deal of wine that day - about two bottles in a 17 hour period. She drank one glass of wine minutes before she chose to get in the car."

During an earlier hearing Caprice's lawyer Nick Freeman - who has represented several celebrities in driving cases - said the smell of alcohol on her breath was simply due to "alcohol halitosis" and there was no evidence she was intoxicated.

He said she had been taking the prescription drug Cipro to deal with the infection.