A MOTORIST caught drink driving for the fourth time has received a community punishment.

By the time Anthony Love Lawson, 47, finishes his latest driving disqualification, he will have spent more than 10 years serving bans imposed for drink driving.

He was more than three times the drink drive limit when police stopped him on the B1222 Sherburn-in-Elmet to Cawood road at 11.37pm on February, 20, Sarah Tyrer, prosecuting, told York magistrates.

He had previously been convicted of drink driving in 2000 when he was banned from driving for 18 months, 2001, when he got a three-year driving ban and 2015 when he received a two-year driving ban.

He told a probation officer: "When you look at my record, it makes me look like a drink driver."

District judge Adrian Lower told him: "You are a drink driver" and banned him from driving for four years.

He also gave him a 12-month community order with 15 days' rehabilitative activities and 200 hours' unpaid work, and ordered him to pay £85 prosecution costs and an £85 statutory surcharge.

Lawson, of Market Place, Cawood, pleaded guilty to drink driving.

Ms Tyrer said police got an anonymous tip-off at 11.15pm that Lawson had been drinking in the Anchor pub in Cawood, got into his Beetle car and driven off.

When police found him 12 minutes later, he was unsteady on his feet and slurred his words.

A breath test gave a reading of 109 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35.

For him, Graham Parkin said Lawson and his girlfriend had walked home from the pub. But they had then argued and she had ordered him out of the house.

So he had driven off. He then thought about what he was doing, turned round and was heading back to Cawood when police caught up with him.

He had had to cancel a job interview because he knew he would be banned, and he had sold the car to pay off debts.

Lawson lives on benefits, said Mr Parkin.