'Intoxicated' pensioner 'couldn't hold up trousers' after crashing as he blames medication
A man who drove his Land Rover Defender the wrong way along a busy road and was involved in several collisions with vehicles and street furniture has been banned from driving for nearly two years.
Police received several phone calls from members of the public about incidents on May 11. Officers turned up to find 74-year-old Edwin Thorpe who appeared to be so intoxicated that he "could not hold up his trousers".
Thorpe, of Castle Court, in Wem, was charged with failing to provide a specimen of breath for analysis which the police required for an investigation. Representing himself at Telford Magistrates Court on Tuesday, he pleaded guilty but blamed the medication he was on at the time as well as a chest infection that gave him a nasty cough.
"I would not have considered myself excessively drunk," he said. "I only had the one drink. I blame the medication I was on to control my blood sugar. I was also told that I had a chest infection and received treatment for it."
Thorpe added: "I did not refuse to blow into the machine, but I did not provide the sample, that's the truth.
"I refute being intoxicated at all, it was the result of the medication," he added.
