Wife Of Disgraced Banker Caught Drink-Driving Hours After He Was Jailed

The drunken wife of a disgraced ex-Coutts banker was caught driving her husband's car hours after watching him receive three years imprisonment at the Old Bailey for laundering the proceeds of his son's £10m fraud.

Housewife Linda Noad, 58, of Uplands, Stonehouse Road, Halstead, Sevenoaks, sobbed in the dock of Bromley Magistrates Court last friday as she recalled simply getting into the vehicle to feel close to her incarcerated husband.

She pleaded guilty to driving his blue Honda Accord in Broke Farm Road, Orpington in the early hours of July 15 with 73 microgrammes of alcohol in her breath - the legal limit is 35.

Mrs Noad had spent the day before her arrest at the Central Criminal Court, where Roger Noad, 60, who worked at the prestigious bank for thirty years, was imprisoned for allowing "eye-watering" sums of cash to be channeled through his accounts.

Their son Matthew, 27, currently serving four years and eight months, had orchestrated a land investment swindle, which targeted pensioners in a cold-calling scam, who then invested their savings with the promise of big returns.

He made around £1.2m and £655,000 was funnelled through his father's bank accounts, all while still living with his parents.

Mrs Noad herself was charged with money laundering, but the jury failed to reach a verdict in relation to her.

"We'd been on trial, me and my husband, at the Old Bailey and he got three years," she told the court. "Me and my son left the Old Bailey at 5.30pm and we were drinking.

"I don't normally drink and I went to bed and I felt really bad because I had never been apart from my husband for thirty-five years.

"I got up and sat in his car and then started driving down the road and thought to myself: 'What are you doing?'

"I decided to turn around and the police were there."

She was fined £100, with £85 costs, ordered to pay a £20 victim surcharge and was disqualified from driving for twenty months.

"I haven't got any income. My husband has gone away and he's got no earnings," Noad told the court.