This Is Guernsey

A DRINK-DRIVER escaped a prison sentence in the Magistrate’s Court despite having admitted he was more than three times the limit. Christopher Dodd was given a six-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, following a private meeting in the assistant-Magistrate’s chambers with prosecuting inspector Roger Robilliard and defence advocate Sarah Brehaut.

Prior to sentencing, no facts or mitigation were read out in open court.

Assistant-Magistrate Philip Robey said the circumstances of the case were ‘highly exceptional’ and that he would be unlikely to see them again.

Dodd, 39, of Wangford, Rue Maze, St Martin’s, was also disqualified from driving for four years.

At a previous hearing, Insp. Robilliard told the court that Dodd had given a reading of 118 micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of breath.

The limit is 35.

Royal Court guidelines state that a custodial sentence should be considered for first-time offenders with a reading above 110 and second-time drink drivers with a reading of 70 or more.

A sentence is suspended only in exceptional circumstances.

Dodd entered a guilty plea to the charge on 22 October.

At that sitting, Insp. Robilliard said that at 11.50pm on 6 September a man was asleep in bed at a property opposite Blanches Pierres Lane, St Martin’s.

He heard his dog barking and looked outside, where he saw Dodd in the driver’s seat of a Land Rover with the engine running and lights on. Dodd was calling out.

The witness asked him what he was doing and was told to mind his own business.

The defendant told the man that he was ‘completely smashed’ and did not know where he was.

The police were called and he was found in a nearby garden lying on the ground, singing.

He told police that he had drunk one bottle of lager before driving to the Fermain Tavern. Staff there said Dodd had consumed three pints of lager and two shorts.

When the case was adjourned by assistant-Magistrate Cherry McMillen for a probation report, she had said that all sentencing options were open.