Driver who crashed BMW into a telegraph pole outside Cookstown loses licence for three years
A driver who crashed a BMW car into a telegraph pole outside Cookstown later admitted to police having consumed two beers and a ‘Fireball’ shot earlier, Dungannon Magistrates Court was told.
Patrick Cush, aged 30, from Tirnaskea Road, Pomeroy, was fined £250 with a £15 offender’s levy, and banned from driving for three years for driving while having consumed excess alcohol in breath.
Prosecuting counsel said on February 2 last, police on mobile patrol at Pomeroy Road, Cookstown, observed a BMW which had collided with a telegraph pole in a ditch.
The lawyer said there was noone in the vehicle, which had frontal damage, and they called with the last registered owner who said she had not driven it for a number of days and it must have been the defendant who was upstairs asleep.
Counsel said police went to the bedroom which had a smell of intoxicating liquor and found the defendant under the duvet.
She said Cush admitted crashing into the telegraph pole and told police that he had drunk a bottle of whisky when he came home.
The lawyer said he provided an evidential specimen showing an alcohol reading of 48 mcgs per 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 mcgs.
Defence solicitor Stephen Atherton said this was the defendant’s second offence for a similar matter in a matter of weeks.
He said Cush had told police that he had also taken two beers and a ‘Fireball’ shot earlier in the evening, and accepted that he should not have been driving.
Mr Atherton added that the defendant had been going through a difficult period in his life.