Fifth drink-driving offence by UK building worker

David Wise, 43, c/o Waves Apart Hotel, Vazon, Castel, also admitted driving without insurance or a licence.

The Magistrate’s Court was told that the defendant had multiple convictions in the UK for driving without insurance and while disqualified, with some penalised by a prison sentence.

Advocate Rory Calderwood, prosecuting, told the court the defendant was in Guernsey doing work for a UK firm.

At about 9.30pm, a witness saw a Ford Transit van with no lights on being driven erratically in the Cobo area and called the police. The witness followed the van to Waves and police arrived at about 9.40pm.

The witness told officers that they had seen a man getting out of the van and provided a description of him. They said he was wearing a hi-vis jacket. Officers saw a man fitting the description enter Waves, but lost sight of him briefly.

They were directed to a bedroom and when the defendant opened the door he was stripped to the waist and there was a hi-vis jacket on a bed.

He failed a roadside breath test and was arrested.

A test at the police station identified 55 micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of his breath – the legal limit is 35.

In interview, Wise denied driving the van. He said that when he got to Waves the van had already been parked outside and he had had a few drinks before going for a shower and then the police had arrived.

He said he had been to the van only to collect his phone charger.

Some six to eight people from his company were working in Guernsey and were all staying at Waves and all had hi-vis jackets.

Advocate Calderwood said the prosecution accepted that the defendant could have argued that this was a case of mistaken identity.

He had been convicted of drink-driving in the UK last year and before that in 2007 and 1999.

Advocate Sarah Morgan said her client did not admit the offences in interview but had wasted no time in court.

It was an aggravating factor that he was currently disqualified from driving in the UK, but the previous offences had been committed some time before.

The period between 2007 and 2017 had coincided with one of domestic stability for him, but he had since gone through a messy divorce.

It was not the highest reading to come before the court.

Judge Graeme McKerrell said the defendant got great credit for his guilty pleas but that was as far as it went.

This was his fifth conviction for drink-driving, which was relevant to his sentencing consideration.

A fine would be wholly inappropriate in view of the previous convictions and the aggravating factors of no licence or insurance.

For drink-driving, Wise was jailed for six weeks and banned from driving for five years.

A two-week prison sentence, consecutive, was imposed for having no insurance, with a one-year driving ban concurrent. No separate order was made for the licence offence.