A NORTH Yorkshire factory worker caught drink-driving for the fourth time in ten years, after his girlfriend had told him he had got her pregnant but she had had an abortion, has been jailed.

Mark Goundry, 35, pleaded guilty yesterday to driving after drinking more than twice the legal limit of alcohol, and was sent to prison for four months by Harrogate magistrates, who also banned him from the roads for five years. Prosecutor Sarah Tyrer said police had been told to watch out for a J-registered Vauxhall Cavalier and spotted it in Hilton Lane, Knaresborough in the early hours of March 3.

Goundry, of Inman Walk, Knaresborough, a packer in a local factory, was at the wheel, and turned out to have three previous convictions for drink-driving, two in 1993 and another in 1998. Geoffrey Rogers, mitigating, said Goundry had been drinking wine and beer at a friend's house, but had gone home on the bus. There he was told by his sister that his girlfriend had called ''indicating she had been pregnant but had already had an abortion''.

Mr Rogers said Goundry, who had known nothing of this, allowed his emotions to get the better of him. All he could think about was speaking to his girlfriend so he borrowed his sister's car and drove there.

He was angry, they had a row - the relationship was now over - and he was on his way home when the police stopped him.

Magistrates' chairman John Metcalfe told Goundry: ''To drive over the limit once is daft, to drive twice is even more stupid. When we get up to four, words almost fail the Bench and there is no suitable sentence other than prison.''

Updated: 10:51 Tuesday, April 08, 2003