A BANK worker three times the drink-drive limit paid the price of a two minute drive with a 28 month driving ban.

Young mother Victoria Louise Smith, 26, had had three glasses of wine after work and had not planned on driving.

She smashed into parked cars and ended with a bus stop standard lying across her bonnet, Burnley magistrates heard.

The defendant, of Harrison Street, Briercliffe, admitted driving with excess alcohol on January 2. She was fined £300 with £35 costs.

John Wishart, prosecuting, said police went to a road accident on Church Street, Burnley, at 8.30pm and found a vehicle crashed into a line of parked cars.

Smith was being treated by paramedics and later gave two breath tests at the police station. The lower of two revealed 104 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath - the legal limit is 35. She had no previous convictions.

Alfred Rebello, defending, said there had been no witnesses to the accident and Smith had been fully frank and co-operative with police.

Smith, the mother of a young son, had been persuaded to go for a drink and thought a glass of wine would leave her system in an hour. She had had a busy day at work with no time for lunch.

The defendant's friend's boyfriend had offered to move her car from a car park so she would not get a parking ticket but kept stalling it.

Smith got into the car and thought she was OK to drive a short distance. Mr Rebello said Smith hit the parked cars after a driver reversed from a driveway into the main road.

The defendant had suffered a lot of distress over the weekend after the offence.

A ban was going to have a major impact on her, her seven-year-old son and her chances of promotion.

The offence was totally out of character.