A young man who thought he was fit enough to get behind the wheel after drinking beer has been banned for 18 months after police spotted him driving "erratically" into a petrol station forecourt in Newtown.
Police officers waited for Kai Tinker to come out of Snax 24 in Pool Road after they saw him driving "excessively quick" just before midnight on November 17. When Tinker left the shop, he saw the waiting police car and walked away before officers stopped him and brought him back to his grey Vauxhall Astra.
A breath test reading later revealed that he was almost twice the drink drive limit.
The apprentice maintenance engineer, from Brynteg, Bettws Cedewain, was handed a driving ban and ordered to pay £471 in fines and costs to the court after pleading guilty to drink driving when he appeared at Welshpool Magistrates' Court on Tuesday, December 5.
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A breathalyser reading showed he had 67 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes of alcohol.
Paul Inns, representing Tinker, said: "In reality, he misjudged it. He’d been out earlier on in the night and drank a couple of pints. He walked home and remained home until 11.30pm but it was an ill-judged decision to pop to Snax 24."
Magistrates order Tinker to pay a £276 fine, £110 victim surcharge and £85 prosecution costs, and offered him to complete a drink-drive awareness course to reduce the length of the ban.
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