Banned Sutton drink-driver flipped van on to roof while ‘borrowing’ girlfriend’s car

Police were on Chesterfield Road South when they saw a black VW Polo collide with a parked Vauxhall Combi van and turn it on to its roof, at 10.40pm on February 24.

Michael Little, prosecuting, said driver Lewis Gent submitted to a breath test which revealed he had 66 microgrammes of alcohol when the legal limit is 35 microgrammes.

The 19-year-old told officers he drank five cans of lager earlier in the evening and admitted it was a mistake.

He explained that the Polo belonged to his then-partner who wasn't aware he had borrowed it and it wasn't insured because he had been banned in August last year.

"He is clearly devastated by what's happened," Donna Pursglove, mitigating, said. "It has ruined relationships with his girlfriend.

"It has had a big impact on him. He needs to do a lot of work with maturity and thinking skills.

"He is waiting to start a job as a hospital porter. Hopefully we won't see him back before the courts. It has been a real eye-opener for him.”

The presiding magistrate told him: “This was a disastrous set of circumstances of your own making.”

Gent, of Kirkby Folly Road, Sutton, admitted drink driving, driving while disqualified and without insurance, when he appeared at Mansfield Magistrates Court, on March 15.

He received a 12-month community order with 15 rehabilitation days and 80 hours of unpaid work.

He must pay a £114 surcharge and £85 costs. He was banned for three years.