Drunk man asked to leave Ashby pub goes to sit in car and gets arrested for motoring offence
A drunk man who was asked to leave a pub went to sit in his car and got arrested for being drunk in charge of a vehicle. Jonathan Jenkinson, 40, had been at the White Hart in Ashby with his girlfriend when the pub staff asked him to leave just after midnight on Sunday, June 16.
Leicestershire Police officers on duty in Market Street saw him stagger towards his Seat Leon parked outside the pub, get in behind the wheel and turn the ignition on. They arrested him after he failed a breath test and at Leicester Magistrates' Court on Monday (July 1) he pleaded guilty to being drunk in charge of a vehicle.
Prosecutor Ravinder Daroch told the court that Jenkinson had been "unsteady on his feet, almost squinting and leaning back to steady himself" as he made his way to the car. And after they approached him he "complied in a bit of an agitated manner".
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He was arrested and taken to Euston Street Police Station in Leicester where he was given a breath test. He gave a reading of 101 microgrammes per 100ml of breath - the legal limit is 35 microgrammes.
Jabeen Naru, representing Jenkinson, said her client had never intended to drive the car. She said: "He was asked to leave by the staff and had gone to the vehicle and turned the ignition on.
"He says he wanted his girlfriend to know he was in the car and she would walk out and they would walk home - it was not his intention to drive home, he's said.
"He knew he was staggering, he was drunk." She said Jenkinson had a child from a previous relationship in Derby and needed his car to go there. She asked the magistrates to give him points on his licence instead of banning him, which the magistrates agreed to.
He was given 10 points on his licence and warned that any further driving offences would lead to him being banned. He was also fined £316 and ordered to pay £85 court costs and a £184 victim surcharge.
The chair of the bench, Jane Hanson, told Jenkinson, of Main Street, Linton, near Swadlincote: "I think you realise that wasn't a particularly sensible thing to do. Try not to do it again, would be my advice."