A Cole Harbour woman who was driving with five times the legal limit of alcohol in her system and two children in the car is expected to be sentenced on Monday.

Jennifer Ann Sims was arrested in April 2014 after an officer saw a car stopped in the middle of Forest Hills Parkway, near Chameau Crescent in Cole Harbour.

She pleaded guilty to impaired driving in May and was scheduled to be sentenced Thursday, but the judge adjourned the case until Monday.

Sims remorseful

Sims wept as she read a letter to the court on Thursday, outlining her remorse.

"No amount of guilt can change the past and no amount of anxiety can change the future," she said, adding that she has replaced alcohol with meditation.

"I always turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism in my life," she said. "My actions that day were unequivocally wrong."

Sims is asking for a curative discharge in the matter, which would allow the judge to impose less than the minimum sentence. The court heard Sims is also getting counselling for alcohol addiction.

Patricia Mugridge, an addictions social worker, said Sims has stayed sober since the April 2014 incident and she's less likely to relapse again.

'Risk of reoffending is so significant'

Crown attorney Robert Kennedy said he opposes the discharge as it is the fourth time in five years that Sims has been charged with impaired driving-related offences.

"It's quite clear that she's earnest in her remorse for her actions on that day in April of 2014. She has certainly made a change in terms of seriously addressing her alcohol issues," said Kennedy.

"It's just the risk of reoffending is so significant here."

Sims was previously convicted of impaired driving in March 2009 after a traffic stop a month earlier in Westphal, outside Dartmouth.

In September 2012, she pleaded guilty to two charges: having a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit of .08 in connection with an incident in September 2010, and refusing the breathalyzer in May 2011.