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Jail for drink driver who was an 'accident waiting to happen'

Fri, 04 Dec 2015

A Douglas man will spend his 50th birthday and Christmas Day behind bars after being caught three times over the drink drive limit.

49-year-old Martin Mcarthur told police he'd been driving on farmland where he lived searching for ducks when they found him heavily intoxicated on the evening of October 11th.

They'd attended after a tip off that he'd driven home from a pub in Union Mills - one witness who saw him drive off said he was, at times, driving "completely on the wrong side of the road".

Mcarthur denied driving the 1.4 mile distance home saying he'd walked but was later picked out in an identity parade - he went on to plead guilty to drink driving and driving whilst disqualified.

At Douglas Courthouse this week his advocate described it as a "grave error of judgement" saying his poor decision making was "inextricably linked to alcohol".

Sentencing him to 10 weeks in prison, and disqualifying him from driving for six years, Deputy High Bailiff Jayne Hughes said the case was aggravated by a conviction last year for an identical offence.

She told him he'd taken the decision to not only risk his own life but the lives of other people who were using the road telling him "you were, quite frankly, an accident waiting to happen". 

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