News / Drove back from pub while four times over limit
A SCAFFOLDER from Devon who decided to drive back from the pub when he was four times over the legal alcohol limit has been banned from the road for three years.
Mark Tunley, of 34 School Close, Plymouth, pleaded guilty to driving from the Mid Brae Inn back to the Sella Ness accommodation block with 89 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood in the early hours of Sunday. The legal limit is 22 microgrammes.
Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie said Tunley had been seen drinking in the Brae pub earlier on Saturday evening.
He departed the pub sometime after 12.30am on Sunday and was captured by a CCTV camera getting into his car and driving off.
Police traced the vehicle to the accommodation block before tracking down Tunley, who failed a roadside screening test.
Tunnel admitted drink driving in the Mid Brae Inn car park, on the A970 road at Brae and on the B9076 road between Brae and the Sella Ness accommodation car park at Graven, Mossback.
Defence agent Richard Donaldson said his client had “little recollection” of the incident and, while he had only travelled a short distance at a time when there wasn’t a lot of traffic on the road, he regretted what he had done.
Tunley has been working on the under-construction Shetland Gas Plant at Sullom Voe, and Donaldson said he planned to leave the islands immediately to take up a scaffolding job back in Plymouth.
Honorary sheriff Sandy Cluness said being four times the limit meant Tunley had consumed a “considerable amount” of alcohol.
He disqualified him for three years – the minimum sentence for someone with an analogous previous conviction – and fined him £600. The sheriff also ordered the forfeiture of Tunley’s vehicle.
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