'Struggling' Mansfield boozer smashed into car and drove off

Grant Vaughan crashed his Vauxhall Astra into a Peugeot, on Avocet Close, Warsop Vale, on December 4, said Robert Carr, prosecuting.

But witnesses gave police his licence number and he was traced to Linden Street, Shirebrook.

Vaughan, 28, admitted driving with excess alcohol and failing to stop after a road accident, when he appeared at Mansfield Magistrates Court on Thursday.

A test at Mansfield police station revealed he had 103 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, when the legal limit is 35 microgrammes.

He had a previous conviction for drink driving in 2005, and had last been before the courts in 2011, for a public order offence, said Mr Carr.

Sarah Alderton, of the probation service, said Vaughan was struggling to cope and drinking heavily, after recently splitting up with his partner.

He had moved back in with his father, who had suffered a stroke.

Sarah Sanderson, mitigating, said: “He had been out drinking all day. He had a friend who was driving his car.

“But for no reason that he can explain, he got into the driver’s side and started to drive the short distance to his home.”

Vaughan, a driver for a company that clears council houses, will not lose his job, the court heard, but he will be given a weekly breath test.

He was banned for 25 months, but if he completes a rehabilitation course his licence will be returned 190 days earlier.

He was ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work and complete six days of a rehabilitation activity for his drinking. He must pay £85 court costs and an £85 victim surcharge.