Drink driver found guilty by Royal Court

Friday 12 June 2020

Guernsey's Royal Court has found a man guilty of drink driving while five times over the alcohol limit, despite his claims that he didn't start drinking until after he had driven home.

Uvis Berzins was reported to Guernsey Police in September last year, while driving from his work in Pitronnerie Road to his home in Collings Road.

An off-duty officer, who had been driving behind him, made the call at around 11:45 after watching the defendant swerve onto the wrong side of the road while going round a blind corner and stop multiple times, for "no apparent reason".

The officer followed Berzins into a Clos, where he parked at his home address and went inside. 

Uniformed officers arrived at the house at 12:15 and asked to speak with the defendant. They noticed the "faint smell" of alcohol on his breath and asked if he had eaten or drunk anything since returning home, to which he replied "no". However, Berzins, who used an interpreter throughout the trial, later claimed he hadn't understood the question.

A roadside breath test was taken, which came back positive, and the defendant was arrested and taken to the police station.

One of the officers stayed to search the house for any signs of recent alcohol consumption, but could only find four cider bottles - two empty and two half full - hidden in Berzin's bedroom cupboard.

At first, he told police he had only drunk "one or two" ciders since returning home from his early morning work shift, but a reading of 175 micrograms of alcohol in 100ml of breath proved that not to be true. He later admitted he had consumed more than half a litre of vodka and a litre of cider.

Pictured: The defendant was asked to carry out a breath test (file image).

When asked why he had lied to the officers, he said: "I was scared and if I had told them how much I had actually consumed no one would have believed me anyway".

However, throughout the case, Berzins maintained that he had drunk all of the alcohol in the 25 minutes between getting home and the arrival of uniformed officers, with the exception of 250ml of cider, which he drank in the carpark at work before leaving.

While giving evidence in the Royal Court this week, the defendant said he had received some bad news from family in Latvia that morning and was under "huge stress", so had decided to drink a small amount of cider before heading home.

He said he thought his driving was "okay" but that he was "quite on edge" and might not have been concentrating on the road. He also mentioned that he had reached over at one point to turn down the radio and said that could have been why he swerved onto the wrong side of the road.

When Crown Advocate Jenny McVeigh suggested to the court that 600ml of vodka was "a lot to consume in half an hour", Berzins put it down to his nationality.

"Where I come from it's nothing obscene," he explained through his interpreter. "And when I drink, I consume quite a lot of alcohol."

Pictured: The defendant was questioned at the police station.

Although Berzins did have an alcohol problem previously, he claimed he had stopped drinking for a year-and-a-half and had only started again in July last year.

In her closing speech yesterday, Crown Advocate McVeigh pointed out a number of inconsistencies in the defendant's evidence, including confusion over where the empty vodka bottle had been placed after he finished it. He claimed to have recycled it in his own bag, separately to the general household rubbish, and said this was why the officer couldn't find the bottle during his search.

"I appreciate there have been some inconsistencies, but there does have to be a margin of error," said Defence Advocate Phoebe Cobb.

"It's not uncommon for people of [the defendant's] nationality to drink spirits straight in large quantities. He has had an alcohol problem in the past and he has a high tolerance to alcohol.

"There have been no reports whatsoever of anyone claiming he was intoxicated during his shift. There's no evidence of alcohol consumption at work."

Advocate Cobb also claimed that the search carried out by the officer "was not a thorough one" and that he "barely looked in the garage".

The two day trial came to an end yesterday, when the Jurats retired for about an hour to deliberate.

Berzins was found guilty on a majority of seven to two and was released on bail, pending a probation report and will return to court next month for sentencing.

"All sentencing options are open," said Judge Russell Finch.

Pictured: The trial took place in the Royal Court.