Former glamour model turned television personality Katie Price appeared at Bromley Magistrates' Court this morning to a face a single charge of being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle.
The charge relates to an incident on 10th October 2017, when two British Transport Police officers came across Price's accident damaged pink Range Rover parked on a Woolwich side street.
She was identified as the person in charge of the vehicle and in the officers' opinion was the worse for wear with drink. She was not actually driving the vehicle at the time the officers were present, hence the nature of the charge.
Price was arrested and subsequently provided an evidential specimen of breath containing 69 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millitres of breath, the legal limit being 35 microgrammes.
The tone of previous posts on this subject (here and here) may well have hinted at my expectation that Price would attend court today, admit the offence and be sentenced for it.
In actual fact she pleaded not guilty. That being the case, a trial has been scheduled at Bexley Magistrates' Court on 25th February 2019.
Normal procedure is for the defence and prosecution advocates to jointly complete a Preparation for Effective Trial form. The completed form indicates that Price intends to rely on the statutory defence that there was no likelihood of her driving the vehicle when the amount of alcohol in her body exceeded the prescribed limit.
It will be for the prosecution to prove that Price had all the means and intention to drive the vehicle when she was over the limit. It will obviously play to the defence's advantage that Price was not driving the vehicle when the officers were present.
The prosecution will now serve (e.g. provide full details of) all the evidence it intends to rely on to the defence. The prosecution also needs to make the defence aware of any additional evidence it has, but does not intend to rely on.
Having considered the prosecution case, the defence might advise Price to change her plea to guilty prior to trial. Alternatively, if the defence still considers the prosecution case open to challenge, the trial might go ahead.
Statistically very few Magistrates' Courts trials go ahead. The overwhelming majority are resolved in some other way without the trial going ahead.
Update (26/2/19): The trial did go ahead and Katie Price was found guilty of being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle.
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