Patricia Narelle Keep in court for drink driving

A woman who drove to Gympie after drinking at the Bribie Island RSL has ‘horrified’ the local magistrate with the level of her intoxication.

Narelle Patricia Keep, 67, pleaded guilty in Gympie Magistrates Court to driving under the influence.

A self-funded retiree who crashed her SUV into another car while more than four times over the limit felt ‘ashamed and embarrassed,’ the Gympie Magistrates Court was told.

Patricia Narelle Keep, 67, had a blood alcohol level of .215 per cent when she crashed her car on September 18, while driving through Monkland.

Magistrate Beavan Hughes said that he was horrified to know there were people out there driving with that level of alcohol and that it was “good luck that no one was injured”.

“Thank God you’re here today,” he said.

Keep, who pleaded guilty to the charge, initially told police she only drank two glasses of wine before leaving the Bribie Island RSL which police said was inconsistent with the “extraordinarily high reading”.

Narelle Patricia Keep, 67, pleaded guilty in Gympie Magistrates Court to driving under the influence.

Mr Hughes told Keep there was “no possible way you could have had control over that vehicle”.

He said that her actions could have had “tragic and irreversible consequences”.

The court heard Keep was “sincerely remorseful” and had “taken full responsibility” for her actions.

It heard Keep was a grandmother of four and suffered from anxiety and depression, had suffered abuse as a child and had financial stresses which caused her to binge drink usually at home. She was engaging with a psychologist and was due to start antidepressants.

She was disqualified from driving for 10 months and fined $1000.

The court heard Keep volunteered at the Gardens Retirement Village and at the Gympie Lions Op Shop and had an income from rental property she owned.