Pine Gap worker Laveda Theon Clarke, 56, pleads guilty to drink driving in Alice Springs court

A Pine Gap employee is carpooling to work for the foreseeable future, after a ‘serious offence’ put her before the courts. Find out what happened.

Pine Gap employee Laveda Theon Clarke, 56, leaves the Alice Springs Local Court on Wednesday, March 26, 2025. Picture: Gera Kazakov

A Pine Gap employee who’s served her “country honourably for 30 years” is carpooling to work for the foreseeable future, after she pleaded guilty to a “serious offence” in court.

Laveda Theon Clarke, 56, pleaded guilty to one charge of driving with a medium range blood alcohol content in the Alice Springs Local Court on Wednesday.

Representing herself, the mother of two appeared before Judge David Woodroffe, where with a shaky voice she told the court about her “serious offence”.

“I actually had a designated driver that night that wasn’t able to get me home and I waited for a couple of hours and I chose to get in my car instead of leaving it because of just the crime – but I should’ve left the car, vandalism would’ve been better than being now before the courts,” she said.

Pine Gap employee Laveda Theon Clarke, 56, leaves the Alice Springs Local Court on Wednesday, March 26, 2025. Picture: Gera Kazakov

On February 1, Clarke who was driving a Toyota CHR, was pulled over on Barrett Dr in Alice Springs for a random alcohol and drug test, which “returned a positive result for alcohol,” police prosecutor Steven Haig said.

She was arrested and taken to the Alice Springs watchouse, he said, where she returned a blood alcohol reading of 0.088 per 210 litres of breath.

“When asked why she was driving, she replied ‘to get home’,” Mr Haig said.

Clarke told the court she was “working on behalf of the government at Pine Gap” and had “served my country honourably for 30 years”.

She had no outstanding fines and this was her first time before the court, Mr Haig said.

Clarke told the court she had since returned her car to Toyota and was now carpooling to work.

She asked she be spared a conviction as it may affect her clearance at the base.

But Mr Haig said “the fact is traffic convictions don’t affect immigration or even defence clearances for people at Pine Gap”.

“She’s not the first person from there or even from America or Australia to be arrested for drink driving; she probably won’t be the last.”

Judge Woodroffe spared her a conviction, but fined her $550 and disqualified her licence for six months.

Originally published as Pine Gap worker Laveda Theon Clarke, 56, pleads guilty to drink driving in Alice Springs court