Mansfield alcoholic driver was FOUR times over the limit

A Mansfield alcoholic who had been told he was drinking himself to death was more than four times over the drink drive limit when he swerved into a parked vehicle on New Year’s Eve, a court heard.
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CCTV operators tipped off police who stopped Robert Brown’s Vauxhall Astra, on Rock Valley, at 10.45pm, on December 31.

A test revealed he had 151 mcgs of alcohol in 100 mls of breath, when the legal limit is 35 mcgs.

The court heard that Brown has two previous convictions for drink driving, from 2008 and 2014.

Chris Perry, mitigating, said: “He knows his liberty is at risk. He knows what he did was reckless. He says he is lucky that he didn’t hurt anoyone else, let alone himself.”

He said Brown, who has been dependent on alcohol for 20 years, was warned he was drinking himself to death by his doctor, and quit boozing for two months last year.

But the death of his ex-partner through a drug overdose caused him to “spiral downwards” and he began drinking again, even though he has a “barely functioning” liver.

On New Year’s Eve he borrowed his sister’s car and drank to excess.

Mr Perry urged magistrates to step back from imposing a jail sentence, and instead opt for an alcohol treatment programme.

“Such an order could literally be a lifesaver for Robert Brown,” he said.

Brown, 48, of Bowling Street, admitted drink driving, and driving without a licence, when he appeared at Mansfield Magistrates Court, on Friday.

Magistrates told him he was a “danger to himself as well as others” who made “rash and dangerous decisions.”

Brown was given an eight week sentence, suspended for 12 months, with a nine month alcohol treatment programme, and 31 sessions of the drink-impaired driver’s course.

He was ordered to pay costs of £85 and a £115 government surcharge

He was banned from driving for five years.