6:23pm UK, Tuesday August 22, 2006

Model Caprice has gone to court to try and escape a minimum one-year ban for drink-driving.

The Californian-born star, from Camden, north London, has admitted the offence - but blames her mistake on a prescription drug she was taking for a urinary infection.

180 Caprice Bourret at court drive driving

Caprice blamed reaction with prescription drug

The 34-year-old said she drank a bottle and a half of red wine at lunch and several glasses at an evening party in the hours before she was arrested.

But her solicitor Nick Freeman argued she was displaying no signs of intoxication other than "alcohol halitosis" when she was detained.

He told Highbury Magistrates' Court in north London: "There is a total absence of any suggestion of intoxication in this case."

The lawyer is nicknamed Mr Loophole for his success in representing celebrity clients in driving cases.

At an earlier hearing he said Caprice had been taking the antibiotic Cipro to tackle cystitis and this had affected how her body coped with the alcohol.

She was stopped in the early hours of December 10 last year in central London by police while driving her Mercedes convertible.

A breath test revealed the model, whose full name is Caprice Bourret, was about one-and-a-half times the legal drink-drive limit.

District Judge Emma Arbuthnot adjourned the case until Friday, when she will deliver her judgment.