Bike teacher sacked for drinking

23 March 2010

A woman has been sacked from her job as a motorcycle instructor because she was drunk while giving a lesson.

Bingley Magistrates' Court was told that Sandra Kenyon, 46, from Hipperholme, Halifax, was four times the legal alcohol limit - she had 131 microgrammes (mcg) of alcohol in 100 millilitres of her breath. The legal limit is just 35mcg.

Kenyon, who worked for Ridesafe Motorcycle School for nine years, had fallen from her bike three times while she was giving the lesson. She was sacked from her job the same day, March 3.

Kenyon will be sentenced on April 6, once reports are compiled for the court.

She was teaching a learner biker but dropped her motorbike just as the lesson started and had to be helped back on. The lesson ended with Kenyon lying on the ground with several people gathered around her.

Police then arrived and took her motorcycle jacket off her, in which they discovered two bottles of brandy. Kenyon told the police that one bottle, which was empty, had been drunk the previous day and that she had had just a mouthful of the other one on the day she was sacked.

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