Laced drinks: can it really prevent a drink driving disqualification?

It is not a defence to the charge

This is the point people most often get wrong. If you were over the limit and you drove, the offence is committed, whatever you believed you were drinking.

A laced drink argument is a special reasons argument. You are convicted of the offence, but you ask the court to exercise its discretion not to disqualify you. The conviction stands; the ban is what is in issue.

What you have to establish

The burden is on you, and there are three limbs the court will look at.

• That your drink was in fact laced, or that you were given alcohol without knowing it
• That you did not know and had no reason to suspect that what you were drinking was or had been strengthened
• That, but for the additional alcohol, you would have been under the limit

The third limb is where most arguments fail

It is not enough that someone added alcohol to your drink. You have to show that without it you would have been below the limit.

If you had already drunk enough to be over the limit on your own account, the lacing made no difference to whether the offence was committed, and the argument does not get off the ground.

You will usually need expert evidence

Establishing that third limb normally requires a forensic report. An expert works from what you drank, when, your body weight and the reading obtained, and calculates what your level would have been without the added alcohol.

Courts are used to seeing these reports and are generally unwilling to accept the argument without one.

The court also asks whether you should have realised

Even where the calculation works, the court will consider whether you ought to have appreciated that you were unfit or over the limit before you decided to drive.

If you felt noticeably affected and drove anyway, that can defeat the argument even where the drink was genuinely laced.

What helps

Evidence gathered early is worth far more than recollection months later.

• The name of the person who laced the drink, and ideally their evidence
• Witnesses who were with you and can say what you drank
• Receipts, card statements or venue CCTV establishing what was bought
• A clear, contemporaneous account of the evening while it is fresh

It is a discretion, not an entitlement

Even where all three limbs are established, the court is not obliged to allow you to keep your licence. It retains a discretion, and it will exercise it having regard to all the circumstances.

That is why these arguments are prepared properly or not at all.