A 28-year-old hairdresser with her own successful business has been banned from the road for four years after pleading guilty to being behind the wheel of her car with more than three times the permitted level of alcohol in her breath.

Sophie Tinsley of Heol Elwy, Abergele, had unwisely got in her car to drive off after some young girls she did not know had “intimidated” her at a pub, magistrates heard on Tuesday.

It was her second relevant offence in six and a half years because she had previously been convicted of failing to provide a sample.

Chairman Darren Campbell told her at Llandudno court she had been a danger both to herself and other road users. “We have heard about the intimidation but there can be no excuse for drinking and driving,” he added.

Tinsley was placed on a year’s community order and must carry out 180 hours of unpaid work and attend ten sessions of a rehabilitation activity. Costs of £170 were imposed.

James Neary, prosecuting, said she’d driven from the Park Hotel, Colwyn Bay, at 10.30pm on November 4 into a garage forecourt opposite. Her breath reading was 111, against the limit of 35.

Richard Williams, defending, said earlier that evening she had gone with friends to a wine bar at Colwyn Bay and then to the Park Hotel where she was accosted by five girls “making unjustified and unpleasant comments towards her and her friends.”

She made the sensible decision to leave the pub but because there was no CCTV cover for her to park her car outside overnight, she foolishly decided to drive home. “One of the girls she was arguing with then phoned the police,” said Mr Williams.

He said that she was a successful hairdresser who taught others and sometimes travelled distances to work at weddings.

A probation officer told the court that according to Tinsley she’d shared two bottles of Prosecco with four friends in the wine bar then in the pub drank from miniature bottles of wine, intending to get transport home. The girls she encountered in the pub had been threatening and made unpleasant remarks about her appearance. At the time she’d been struggling at the end of a four-year relationship but had now recovered from this.