Right of His Bonnet

Man drank 6 litres of cider at house party, flipped car as he drove home and then walked off

By South Wales Evening Post  |  Posted: November 09, 2016

By Jason Evans

 

A SWANSEA man who drank six litres of cider and a couple of cans of beer at a house party before driving home ended up flipping the car into its roof on a country lane and walking off, a court has heard.

Swansea Magistrates Court was told that police were called to Llwyn Mawr Road near Sketty on the night of October 21 following reports of a single-vehicle crash.


There they found a VW Passat on is roof with blood-stained airbags deployed, and the keys in the ignition — but no driver.


Sharon Anderson, prosecuting, said a witness told police he had seen three people — one of them carrying a flagon of cider — leaving the crash, and officers subsequently found the vehicles' occupants nearby.

The court heard Jonathan Sutton initially denied having anything to do with the VW but later said that on the night in question he had collected a friend from the Landore area of Swansea and driven to a party in Waunarlwydd.

He said he had later left the party to go home but had lost control on a corner, hit an embankment, and over-turned the car.

A subsequent breath test showed the 35-year-old had 83microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath — the legal limit is 35.

Sutton, of Merlin Crescent, Mayhill, pleaded guilty to driving with excess alcohol, driving without due care and attention, and driving without a licence or insurance when he appeared before a district judge sitting at the magistrates court.

A probation report into the defendant said he had consumed three cans of lager and two three-litre bottles of cider at the party, and could not remember much of what happened on night.

The court heard that Sutton — who works as a part-time cleaner in the warehouse of the B&M store in Cwmdu — has 18 previous convictions for some 27 offences.

For driving with excess alcohol Sutton was disqualified from driving for 24 months and was given a 12 month community order with a thinking skills programme and rehabilitation course, and was ordered to complete 80 hours of unpaid work. No separate penalty was imposed for the other offences.

District judge Neil Thomas told Sutton — who only holds a provision licence — that if he was caught driving while disqualified, "custody is pretty much inevitable".