A 22-year-old Dubbo jockey has fronted court after she got behind the wheel in an intoxicated state and caused a head-on collision with another car.
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Hollie Anne Hull, of Wheelers Lane, pleaded guilty to mid-range drink driving and was sentenced on January 11 this year.
The court was told Hull was leaving the car park of the Western Star Hotel after celebrating her success on Melbourne Cup Day last year.
She was driving a blue Ford Focus east on Erskine Street about 11pm as the victim also travelled on the same street, but in a westerly direction in lane one.
According to police, Hull travelled over broken white lines and headed towards the victim. This caused the victim to turn into lane two in an attempt to avoid Hull's Ford Focus. However, Hull's vehicle collided head-on with the victim's.
Court papers say the impact deployed the victim's air bags causing immediate pain to their face. The victim was then taken to Dubbo Base hospital by ambulance for assessment.
Police arrived at the scene and explained to Hull that she needed to submit a breath test because she had been involved in a motor vehicle collision.
Hull told police she had not consumed any alcohol in the last 15 minutes.
Police said they could smell liquor in her breath and after the roadside test returned a positive result, Hull said "OK".
Reciting her version of events to the police, Hull said she was trying to turn right at the set of lights which were still 100 metres away. However, it would have been impossible for her to do so as there was no place to turn into at the lights.
The court heard Hull was arrested for a secondary breath analysis and taken to Dubbo Police Station. The resulting reading was 0.114, more than twice the legal limit.
In custody, police said Hull was pale-faced and had glazed eyes. They said she was unsteady and staggering on her feet. She also seemed "very relaxed" and spoke slowly while interacting with police.
She told them she had started drinking standard size vodka sodas at the Western Star from 4pm that day and ate a garlic bread with her first drink. She said she consumed one drink per hour until 8pm, and had drunk a total of four drinks.
On January 11, the defence solicitor told the court his client had completed the traffic offenders program and that it was better to make mistakes at a younger age than later in life.
He also said Hull was "a very small person" and was being "unfairly discriminated against" as she had consumed four drinks over four hours.
Magistrate Gary Wilson told Hull it was "fortuitous" that nothing extremely serious happened as a result of her driving.
"A head-on collision could have been worse for yourself and for the other [driver]. I hear what you said about how much you drank but obviously you had to be significantly affected and must have felt some degree of intoxication," Mr Wilson said.
As Hull had been without a licence since November 1 and needed to keep up with her "racing regime", Mr Wilson disqualified her from driving for three months from that date.
She was also ordered to hold an interlock driver's licence for 12 months and fined $750.
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