Lawyer on third drink-driving charge has sentence increased

A lawyer who avoided jail after her third drink-driving charge has had her sentence increased. File photo / NZ Herald

A lawyer convicted for her third drink-driving charge has had her sentence increased.

Hastings lawyer Sacha Maria Beacham was fined $1200 plus court costs and disqualified from driving for nine months by Judge Brooke Gibson in Auckland District Court last Friday.

But Judge Gibson has since issued a minute to say the nine-month disqualification period had been substituted for a sentence of one year and one month.

The Land Transport Act says: "The court must order the person to be disqualified from holding or obtaining a driver licence for more than one year."

The charge was laid after a police officer, concerned about the way Beacham's 2000 S-Type Jaguar was being driven, pulled her over just after 2.30am on January 15.

According to the police summary of facts, Beacham was breath-tested and recorded 561mcg per litre of breath. The legal limit is 400mcg.

Last week's was Beacham's third appearance in the dock for drink-driving.

She was convicted in 2007 of driving with an excess breath-alcohol level of 703mcg. In 2002 of she was convicted for driving with an excess blood-alcohol level of 112mg of blood. The legal limit is 80.

Her lawyer Patrick Winkler said since Beacham's third conviction she had voluntarily gone to alcohol counselling.