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Mum Kylie Elizabeth Meares receives alcohol ban after crashing her car with child inside

A northern beaches mum who was more than three times over the legal limit when she crashed her car with her five-year-old daughter in the back seat has been banned from drinking.

Photo of Kylie Meares coming out of Manly Local Court. Picture: AAP/Time Pascoe.
Photo of Kylie Meares coming out of Manly Local Court. Picture: AAP/Time Pascoe.

A northern beaches mum who was more than three times over the legal limit when she crashed her car with her five-year-old daughter in the back seat has been banned from drinking alcohol for two years.

Kylie Elizabeth Meares, 38, of Cromer, lost control of her car while trying to drive just a few hundred metres to her home after attending a family party.

A Holden Commodore damaged in an accident on Macquarie St, Cromer, caused by a drink driving mother with her five-year-old daughter in the back seat. Picture: Abby O’Rourke.
A Holden Commodore damaged in an accident on Macquarie St, Cromer, caused by a drink driving mother with her five-year-old daughter in the back seat. Picture: Abby O’Rourke.

The mother of four pleaded guilty in Manly Local Court on Wednesday to high-range drink driving and negligent driving after she crashed her silver Fiat into a parked car about 9.30pm on Saturday, November 10.

Her father, 60, was in the front passenger seat and her daughter was in a booster seat in the rear when the Fiat swerved off Macquarie St while Meares tried to negotiate a 90-degree right-hand bend.

The Fiat, travelling at about 30kmh, ploughed into the rear of a parked Holden Commodore, which was pushed forward into the towball of another parked car.

No one was injured in the smash.

A 90-degree bend in Macquarie St, Cromer, where Kylie Elizabeth Meares crashed her car into parked vehicles while she had her five-year-old daughter with her in the car.
A 90-degree bend in Macquarie St, Cromer, where Kylie Elizabeth Meares crashed her car into parked vehicles while she had her five-year-old daughter with her in the car.

Police breath tested Meares. She had a blood alcohol reading of 0.171.

Meares, a chef at a child care centre, was at a party in Denison Pl at Cromer before deciding to drive to her home in a nearby street.

Meares had a blood alcohol reading of 0.171 when she was arrested. Picture: AAP/Tim Pascoe
Meares had a blood alcohol reading of 0.171 when she was arrested. Picture: AAP/Tim Pascoe

She told police she had three “larger than usual” glasses of rose between 5.30pm and 9pm before getting behind the wheel.

Magistrate Michelle Goodwin was told that Meares decided to drive, and not walk home with her relatives, because her father and daughter were tired.

In a facts sheet tendered to court police said that when they arrived at the crash scene they believed Meares was “well affected by alcohol due to her slurred speech and being unsteady on her feet as she walked”.

Ms Goodwin told Meares, who was supported in court with her father and her 18-year-old son, that she should have taken a decision to walk home rather than drive.

“You placed not only yourself, but your father and your child at risk,” she said.

Ms Goodwin placed Meares on a Community Corrections Order to be of good behaviour for two years.

She must also abstain from alcohol for two years as part of the order.

Meares was also disqualified from driving for 12 months and fined $500.

At the end of the disqualification period she must have an interlock device — which detects whether a driver has alcohol on their breath — fitted to her car for two years.

Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/manly-daily/mum-kylie-elizabeth-meares-receives-alcohol-ban-after-crashing-her-car-with-child-inside/news-story/c558e5652a0208a9c5e6da6a7da1ed59