Downham Market woman’s daughter was in back seat of car in West Winch when she refused to provide breath test
A woman had her daughter unrestrained in the back seat of her car while driving “aggressively” along a main road – before refusing to take a drink-drive test.
Valentyna Yulinetska, 32, of Keats Close in Downham, appeared at Lynn Magistrates’ Court on Thursday charged with failing to provide a specimen for analysis. She pleaded guilty.
Crown prosecutor Colette Harper told magistrates that on May 13, Yulinetska had been spotted by police driving a BMW in an “aggressive manner”, rushing through a set of red traffic lights.
She was pulled over on the A10 at West Winch, and the officer discovered that Yulinetska's daughter was asleep in the backseat of the car without a seatbelt.
They could smell alcohol, and asked Yulinetska to perform a roadside test. However, she failed to complete it on five separate occasions.
She was subsequently arrested, and while at Lynn’s police station, she failed to provide a sample on a further four occasions.
In mitigation, George Sorrell said that Yulinetska was “unacquainted” with the UK law about completing alcohol tests at the time of her offence, having moved to England in 2019.
“Her instruction to me is that it wasn’t so much a deliberate refusal – rather that it was a case of the stress of the situation overcoming her,” the solicitor said.
“She hadn’t encountered a situation like that before, being a lady of good character.
“I am not quite sure what aggressive driving means. You will have to draw your own conclusions on that.”
On Yulinetska’s daughter being unrestrained in the back seat, Mr Sorrell added: “The defendant is very sorry for that, and remorseful – and when the time comes to drive again, she will take that very much into account.”
Magistrates disqualified Yulinetska from driving for 17 months, but also offered her a drink-driving rehabilitation course which, if completed by June next year, will reduce that period by 17 weeks.
She was also fined £200, and ordered to pay £105 in legal costs and an £80 victim surcharge.
