I know someone who, through errors and bad advice rather than malice, found themselves in court for benefit fraud. Like drink driving, it's an offence that the papers see as being a "hot button", and one where the courts have to be seen to be setting examples.
This person was splashed all over the local paper, and the text of the article used all sorts of unpleasant phrases to beef up the sensationalism. This was a few months ago, but the person in question has now put it all behind them. Nobody who knows them thinks any less of them, and nobody who doesn't know them can even remember the story being in the paper.
Just about everyone on this forum knows what it's like to have made an idiotic mistake and be punished for it. You're unfortunate to have been punished by the press as well.
All the paper cares about is selling papers, and they know full well that putting the word "drunk" next to the word "mother" gets people interested. The paper doesn't care about the effect on the subject of the story, and would defend themselves by saying that it's somehow in the public interest to report this stuff. Whether it is or not doesn't excuse the sensationalist manner in which these stories are written up.
If you're a nice person of good character apart from this one lapse of judgement, then remember this: the people who matter don't judge, and the people who judge don't matter.
Anyone who takes pleasure in judging others is asking for harsh judgement themselves if they ever step out of line, and let's face it, nobody lives a blameless life from cradle to grave.