Trial opens for man five times the alcohol limit

Thursday 11 June 2020

A man is standing trial in Guernsey's Royal Court this week after pleading not guilty to drink driving, although he was found to be five times over the alcohol limit when officers arrived at his home less than half an hour after he had driven there.

He was brought to police attention last year, when an off-duty officer who had been following the defendant in his car, reported the vehicle for dangerous driving.

The call was made just before midday on Thursday 19 September.

The off-duty officer said he had been following the defendant for some time and had seen him swerve over to the wrong side of the road while heading round a blind corner along Collings Road before continuing to drive in the centre of the road, forcing other cars to mount the pavement. He claimed the driver had also stopped in the middle of the road multiple times for no apparent reason.

He had watched the defendant pull in and park at his home address and waited in the area until uniformed officers arrived.

They turned up at 12:15, knocked on the door and asked to speak with the defendant, who went outside to meet them. When asked if he had eaten or drunk anything since he got home, he replied "no", although he later said in court that he hadn't understood the question because of a language barrier.

He completed a roadside breath test, which came back positive, before being arrested and taken to the police station.

One of the officers searched his home for recent evidence of drinking, but only came across two empty cider bottles and two half-full cider bottles hidden in the man's bedroom cupboard.

At the station, the defendant told police he had consumed "one or two" cans of cider since getting home from working an early morning shift, though the evidence breath test shortly after proved this not to be true. The man had a reading of 175 micrograms of alcohol in 100ml of breath - the legal limit is 35 micrograms.

"I was scared," he told Judge Russell Finch and the nine Jurats through an interpreter in the Royal Court yesterday. "And if I told them how much I had actually consumed, no one would have believed me anyway."

Pictured: The defendant was taken to the police station for further questioning.

In his police interview the day after the incident, he admitted to officers he had drunk more than half a litre of vodka and some cider, but claims he did that in the time between arriving at home shortly before midday and the arrival of officers at 12:15.

"I started drinking alcohol when I arrived at home," he told them. "I was sober when I sat down to drive."

However, he did say that he'd drunk half a bottle of cider in the carpark before leaving work, as he had just heard some bad news from his family.

His defence advocate, Phoebe Cobb, said the news had made him feel distressed and could have affected his driving.

The defendant yesterday told the court he thought his driving was "okay" but that he was "quite on edge". He also mentioned an incident where he reached over to turn the volume down on the radio and claims this could have been why he swerved over to the wrong side of the road.

Both the prosecution and defence put their sides across at yesterday's hearing, with the off-duty and uniformed officers asked to give evidence, along with the defendant himself.

The trial is expected to reach a conclusion later today.

Pictured top: The trial is being heard in the Royal Court.