Digger driver crashed his Audi A6 after a night out at a social club celebrating his birthday, Craigavon court hears

Ciaran Morrow, aged 27, from Leansmount Road, Aghagallon, appeared before Craigavon Magistrates Court charged with driving with excess alcohol.

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The court heard that on March 15 this year, police were tasked to Kinnego Embankment near Lurgan to deal with a suspected drunk driver.

They found a grey Audi A6 crashed at the side of the road. Police smelled a strong odour of intoxicating liquor from the defendant who was “slurring his words and eyes were glazed”.

He failed a preliminary breath test and an evidential reading was 78 micrograms of alcohol. The legal drink-drive limit is 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath.

A defence lawyer said Morrow had a clear record and apologises for “something he would say is totally out of character”.

The court was told he was employed as a digger driver for a small local firm and part of his duties is to dig house foundations.

“With the loss of his licence which is inevitable today, it is going to make road driving to get to the various locations difficult,” the lawyer said, adding that Morrow’s employer will be affected as he normally collects co-workers in a work van.

"He tells me he had been out at a social club celebrating his birthday,” she said, adding that Morrow and his family don’t know what possessed him to get behind the wheel.

She revealed Morrow’s car was a write-off after the incident and he sustained back injuries. “Luckily no one else was injured,” she said.

The lawyer said Morrow’s employer is going to keep him on at work as this is “completely out of character”. She added that the father-of-two is the only car user in the house so the family will be impacted.

District Judge Trevor Browne said: “It just underlines what could have happened in this case, the catastrophic impact that this would have had, not only as it has now on his day-to-day life but his family could have been confronted with police at the door saying he had been killed in this collision. It just doesn’t bear thinking about.”

He was banned from driving for 12 months and fined £250 plus the £15 offender levy.