Judge brings happy ending to wedding day gone wrong
JOHN BULMER'S wedding day wasn't the blissful occasion he had hoped for.
It started to go wrong when he argued with his bride in the evening, which he said was his fault, after a day of drinking.
He went to her house and fell asleep on the settee, but she told him to leave, so went to sleep in his carpenter's works van.
It got worse when he was arrested by police on suspicion of being in charge of a motor vehicle while over the alcohol limit.
Because of that he missed his honeymoon flight to the UK the next morning as he was in custody awaiting a Magistrate's Court appearance.
But there was a happy ending when Judge Graeme McKerrell found him not guilty.
Mr Bulmer, 58, c/o Flat 3, Rozel Court, Rozel Road, St Peter Port, had denied the charge as he said he had never intended to drive the vehicle.
Judge McKerrell said Mr Bulmer had been a little hazy over how he planned to get the van moved – it was in a disc park – but he had made no attempt to conceal the amount that he had had to drink, which added to his credibility.
Crown Advocate Chris Dunford told the court that, in such matters, the legal burden rested with the accused to prove his contention on the balance of probabilities. Judge McKerrell said he considered that Mr Bulmer had discharged that burden and cleared him.
