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Drink driver (60) five times over legal limit avoids jail time
A man who was almost five times over the drink drive limit has narrowly avoided going to jail.
Keith Wilson said he was “disgusted” at himself when he appeared at Lisburn Magistrates’ Court by video-link from police custody.
Imposing a three-month jail sentence which he suspended for two years, Deputy District Judge Chris Holmes told the 60-year-old it was the highest reading he had ever seen.
Having heard that Wilson, from Shaerf Drive in Lurgan, had “blown 174” with the limit being 35, the judge said: “That’s a huge reading. I think you are actually a record for me and I’m doing this for more than 30 years.”
He heard that Wilson, who admitted drink driving, driving without a licence and without insurance, was arrested on Saturday afternoon in Lurgan two centre following reports from the public about a drunk driver.
Police spotted a Citroen Berlingo with frontal damage, parked across two spaces at Flush Park and when they spoke to Wilson, they noticed that his “eyes were glazed and his speech was slurred” so he was breathalysed and gave the mammoth reading.
Defence solicitor Conor Downey said Wilson was a “well educated man” but that recently, “things have gone terribly wrong for him… but one can only be thankful that no one was hurt as a result.”
Sentencing Wilson, District Judge Holmes warned him that “if you reoffend, especially for drink driving, you will go to jail, as simple and straightforward as that.
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