A drink drive woman seen driving erratically with her young child in the car has been handed a community order and banned from driving for three years.

Vanessa Van Heerden, of Station Field, Boxford, near Hadleigh, was told by Suffolk magistrates they had considered a prison sentence due to her extremely high reading and unacceptable standard of driving while also having her nine-year-old son in the car.

Instead they issued the 36-month ban, ordered her to complete a 12-month community order, with 240 hours of unpaid work. She was also fined £120 and ordered to pay costs of £105 and a victim surcharge of £95.

Van Heerden, 46, was found to be nearly four times the legal limit after being arrested by police who found she had been drink driving in a Volkswagen Beetle in Bildeston with her nine-year-old son in the passenger seat of the car.

She pleaded guilty to drink driving on July 31 this year after she failed breath test and was found to have a reading of 132 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35mcg in 100ml of breath.

Prosecutor Jacqui Dankyi told magistrates Van Heerden's car was described as being driven erratically on Bildeston's High Street, hitting kerbs and verges and slowing down before then speeding up and how she almost hit parked cars and a house,

The court heard that Van Heerden had no previous convictions and in mitigation she told magistrates she was completely mortified about the incident which was completely out of character and that her son was her world.

Sentencing Van Heerden yesterday (Friday), magistrates, who had ordered pre-sentence reports told her she was very lucky not to be going straight to custody because of her extremely high reading.

Magistrates did offer Van Heerden the opportunity to take a drink-drive rehabilitation course, which will reduce her ban by 36 weeks if completed within the necessary time frame.