AND ANOTHER RANT............................

       I live in Northumberland, my mother lives in Morecambe.132 miles away. She is 99, registered blind, partially deaf and suffers from arthritis but remains determined to stay in her own home.

     At about 10.30 pm on Friday October 10^th I received a phone call from one of her neighbours expressing concern, as my mother’s lights were on but she normally retires about 8pm. The neighbour could get no response to phone or bell. I called the lady who acts as my mother’s cleaner, shopper and unofficial carer and requested her to call at my mother’s as I knew she could get in.

    The lady found my mother in a very distressed state. She had suffered a burst varicose vein, there was blood on the kitchen floor, the living room carpet and my mother’s clothes. The lady later told me she thought somebody had broken in and murdered my mother! The lady rang emergency services and an ambulance and police car attended my mother. She was taken to hospital.

  The lady rang me and thought I should come down straight away. My wife and I left almost immediately and arrived at the hospital A and E department about 3.30am on Saturday October 11^th. My mother was being well treated, she had lost a considerable amount of blood and was given a transfusion of two units the next day.

  Meanwhile the lady, concerned for my mother, whom she sees as a friend rather than a client, followed the ambulance. Sadly she was stopped by the police for allegedly going through a red light. She was breathalysed and found to have an excessive amount of alcohol in her blood. I believe she was taken to the police station and kept there until 5am.

 On Tuesday October 21^st the lady appeared before the magistrates  and pleaded guilty to the offence. The magistrates were very sympathetic, in a style rather similar to the one in Stanley Holloway’s “Albert and the Lion”, but she was found guilty of the offence.  She was fined £130 and banned from driving for twelve months.

 As a result, as she is self employed as a cleaner, she has lost her business because she needs transport to move her cleaning materials from one house to another. Unless she can find alternative employment she will eventually become a charge on the state.

  And all this because she tried to help an old lady who was in trouble.

I appreciate she has broken the law but consider that on some occasions, and this to me is one of them, the people who make judgements should be allowed to exercise some common sense.

   After a life time of admiration for the law and the police I now feel that in this case there is no justice.