A SERIAL drink-driver has been banned from the roads for five years and jailed for 12 weeks.

Paul Colin Leonard Austin, 30, defied an earlier court ban just two months after it was imposed, said Cathy Turnbull, prosecuting.

He has now been convicted of drink driving four times.

He was two and a half times the alcohol limit as he crashed a car in Millgate, Selby, on May 29, damaging a wall, York magistrates heard. Police caught up with him as paramedics were tending to an injury on his forehead caused by the crash.

On his behalf, Keith Haggerty pleaded with magistrates to suspend the prison sentence so Austin could work on a major contract maintaining, repairing and building local pubs.

But magistrates locked him up. In addition to the 12-week sentence and five-year driving ban, they ordered him to retake an extended driving test before he drives alone again.

Austin, of Halcyon, Waterfront, Selby, pleaded guilty to drink-driving, driving while disqualified, driving without insurance, and failure to stop after causing an accident.

He was previously banned from driving for four years on March 28 for drink driving, three years in June 2010, and had an earlier drink-driving conviction.

The court heard he gave a reading of 89 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath in a breath test on May 29. The legal limit is 35.

Mr Haggerty said Austin had had a long argument with his girlfriend on May 29 which ended with her ordering him out of the house, so he went and sat in his car, not knowing what to do.

He didn’t know why he decided to drive, but his decision may have been influenced by the amount he had had to drink. 

He drank to cope with depression and accepted he had an alcohol problem which he had started to tackle.
He had started his own business which had had difficulties, but he had recently got what could turn into a long-term contract with a brewery company. But if he went to prison he would lose that.