PRINCESS Diana's mother, Frances Shand Kydd, was banned for a year and fined #400 yesterday after being found guilty of drink driving.

The 60-year-old grandmother of princes William and Harry had more than two and half times the legal limit of alcohol in her blood when she was stopped in Shore Street, Oban, on April 5. She had denied the charge.

Shand Kydd was acquitted on a second charge, of failing to give a roadside breath test without reasonable cause, at the end of her three-day trial at Oban Sheriff Court.

Sheriff William Dunlop told Shand Kydd he was rejecting her evidence from the witness stand and said he was satisfied with the evidence led by procurator fiscal Brian Maguire.

The sheriff said: ``Normally, a blood alcohol rating of this size would attract considerably more than the statutory minimum ban but I will take into account you have been driving without incident for 42 years and that a loss of a licence can mean more to some people than others.

``It is a greater penalty to someone living in a remote area.''

During the trial, it emerged that Shand Kydd had been desperately upset on the day of her arrest by a letter she had received that morning, causing her to cry for much of the day.

Sheriff Dunlop said the distressing news in the letter, details of which were not disclosed in court, coupled with the knowledge that the case would attract ``massive and unwelcome'' publicity had affected her substantially.

Shand Kydd's defence counsel, Dean of Faculty Andrew Hardie QC, asked the sheriff to limit the ban to 12 months because of the remoteness of her home on the Isle of Seil, near Oban.

Throughout the day, Shand Kydd smiled to reporters in the press gallery and often looked to her friends in the public benches for support.

She looked nervous as the court re-convened after lunch and stared straight ahead as the guilty verdict was read out.

As she left the courtroom, Shand Kydd walked past reporters smiling and said: ``I have nothing to say to anybody at any time.''

During the trial, Constable Michael Woods, 33, told the court that Shand Kydd mumbled ``incoherently'' after he had stopped her car in Shore Street, after reports on his radio to look out for the vehicle.

He said he spoke to her as she sat in her car. He said: ``I noticed that she was drunk.''

Mr Woods said Shand Kydd was ``staggering'' when she was asked to get out of the car and move round to the passenger side.

The court was told that a blood test taken at Oban police station revealed Shand Kydd had 206mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, exceeding the 80mg limit.

In his evidence yesterday, Strathclyde Police Detective Sergeant Dugald MacCallum said Shand Kydd was ``distraught, confused, and tearful'' as he drove her home to her house after her arrest.

``On normal occasions that I deal with her, she is a lady, very dignified. On that occasion, she was not her usual self. She was tearful and she didn't know why she was there.''

Mr MacCallum said: ``She confided in me that she had a glass of wine at lunchtime. Because it was Good Friday, she hadn't eaten earlier. She couldn't understand why she had been stopped by the police.''

The defence case focused on suggestions that Shand Kydd's signature on a police form, saying she did not want her blood specimen sample sent for independent analysis, was a forgery.

Shand Kydd had claimed the reason for her staggering about before driving her car was due to an injured leg.

In Oban, Shand Kydd is a well-respected member of the community and, after converting to catholicism two years ago, is a regular worshipper at St Columba's, the church where disgraced former bishop Roddy Wright preached.

Her 15 years of marriage to Earl Spencer ended in bitter divorce in 1969, when he won custody of the children.