A drink driver drove the wrong way up in the motorway in Fife in the early hours of Hogmanay.
Mother-of-three Claire Coull was almost four times over the legal alcohol limit as she headed towards oncoming vehicles, weaving from lane to lane on the M90.
She had been at a Paolo Nutini concert in Edinburgh and started driving home to Inverness after rowing with a friend at the hotel they were staying in.
As she crossed into Fife she drove up the M90 motorway and A92 dual carriageway in the wrong direction.
One driver was so shocked when she passed him that he had to pull over to the side of the road to recover.
Coull, 32, of Aird Avenue, was spotted by police officers in a patrol car who saw headlights coming towards them at 2.20am.
At Dunfermline Sheriff Court she admitted driving dangerously on the M90 and drink driving on the M90 and A92 on December 31.
Her alcohol reading was 83 microgrammes in 100 millilitres of breath, the limit being 22 mg.
When they saw Coull’s car, police activated their blue lights but had to continue to the Cowdenbeath slip road to turn and head after it.
Depute fiscal Azrah Yousaf said: “She continued driving towards oncoming vehicles and weaved between the vehicles.”
Coull finally left the dual carriageway via a slip road without slowing down or checking for other vehicles.
Defence solicitor Richard Freeman said Coull, a first offender, had gone to sit in her car after rowing with her friend to try to defuse the situation but her friend had followed her and the dispute continued.
He said: “At that point things went horribly wrong when she drove off. She didn’t have any idea where she was.
“She was confused and there was a lack of familiarity of the area.
“It was apparent to her that she was on the wrong side of the road.”
He added: “Very fortuitously no harm came to anyone but she realises the potential of great harm being caused here.”
Sheriff Craig McSherry warned Coull that had her conduct resulted in an accident he would have jailed her for at least eight months.
Instead, he imposed a community payback order with 300 hours of unpaid work and disqualified her from driving for two years.
