'Unsteady' Shrewsbury van driver gets 20-month ban for drink driving
A Shropshire police officer who had stopped to fill up his patrol car with fuel spotted another motorist looking unsteady on his feet as he walked across the service station forecourt, a court heard.
Prosecuting at Telford Magistrates Court, Mrs Katie Price said the officer had stopped at the Battlefield service station in Shrewsbury on March 28 when he saw the defendant Shaun Leddington getting into a van.
The officer then followed Leddington as he drove onto Whitchurch Road and into the car park of McDonald's where he circled around twice before finally stopping the van and getting out.
Mrs Price said that when the officer asked Leddington to provide a road side breath test he had replied: "I'm going to fail it."
The court was told that the defendant blew a reading of 156 microgrammes in 100 millilitres of breath, more than four times the drink drive limit of 35 microgrammes.
He was arrested and taken to Shrewsbury police station where he was ordered to blow a breath sample into a machine to take a more accurate reading.
Mrs Price said that Leddington, who works full-time as an electrician, was given two chances to blow into the machine but on each occasion blew too softly or too briefly.
Leddington, 34, of Belle Vue, Shrewsbury, pleaded guilty to failing to provide a specimen of breath.
The court was told he had two previous convictions for driving with excess alcohol from 2001 and 2005 – the latter offence being just days outside of a 10-year deadline that would have meant a mandatory three-year ban from driving.
Leddington was given a 12-month community order with requirements to carry out 20 days of rehabilitation activities, six sessions of alcohol treatment and 100 hours of unpaid work. He was disqualified from driving for 20 months and ordered to pay £85 costs and a £60 victim surcharge.
For Leddington, Oliver Nicholas said his client was a very different man from the person who had committed the earlier offences and had had six children in the intervening years.
Mr Nicholas said the figure from the roadside breath test was not an accurate one, hence the need for further tests at the police station.
He said the defendant was likely to lose his job as a result of a disqualification.
