Drinker's car rolled downhill after handbrake fail

Leon Troy Clarke, 33, of Brookfield Avenue, admitted being in charge of a vehicle whilst unfit to drive through drink on December 19, last year.

Bystanders outside Il Rosso on Nottingham Road in Mansfield reported seeing Clarke’s Peugeot 306 roll past them and into a parked vehicle.

Sanjay Jerath, prosecuting, said: “The engine was running and the driver was slumped over the wheel. He was clearly in no state to be behind the wheel of a car.”

One bystander took the keys from the car and threw them to the side of the road.

Clark was breathalysed and registered 125 microgrammes of alcohol in 1,000 millilitres of breath, when the legal limit is 35 microgrammes.

Morgan Hogarth, mitigating, told the court Clarke had been drinking with friends for five hours and had planned to stay at his girlfriend’s house that night.

He had no house key and got into his car to keep warm.

But the car, which had a ‘not very good handbrake’, was parked on an incline, and when Clarke put the car out of gear so he could turn on the engine and start the heater, it rolled forward.

The court heard Clarke, who works as a plastics fabricator, had no previous convictions and had a clean license.

He told police he had not intended to drive.

Mr Hogarth said: “He works hard to provide for his four children. His position is very difficult because his job is in part dependent on his license.”

Magistrates put ten penalty points on his license and imposed a 12 month community order, with 80 hours of unpaid work.