Drink drivers sentenced

RUNCORN’S roads continued to be a hostile place for drink drivers with a string of convictions and bans.

Christopher William Hartley, 33, of Brackley Street, was banned for 17 months, fined £120, and ordered to pay a £2 victim surcharge and £85 prosecution costs, and testing positive for alcohol behind the wheel of a Mercedes Sprinter van on Latham Avenue on December 23.

Court papers said a breath test found 60 micrograms of alcohol per 100 militres of breath (ug/dl) in his system.

The legal limnit is 35. He was fined £50 for failing to surrender to court on January 16.

Hartley can reduce his ban by 17 weeks if he completes an accredited course.

Kieron McKeever, 21, of Broadfields, was stopped in a Seat Ibiza on Barnfield Avenue in Murdishaw on January 23.

A test revealed a breath alcohol level of 73 ug/dl, above the limit of 35.

McKeever was banned from driving for 20 months, but can reduce the ban by 20 weeks upon completing an accredited course.

He was fined £192 and told to pay £32 in surcharge and £85 prosecution costs.

McKeever had pleaded guilty to driving with excess alcohol.

A driver who hit the road without insurance despite being banned for drink driving was banished from the roads for even longer.

Leonard Matulaic, 44, of Lockfield, pleaded guilty on February 13 to driving a VW Passat while disqualified, with no insurance, and being convicted while on a community order.

The order had been imposed on October 24 after he was caught behind the wheel with 62 ug/dl of alcohol in his breath.

Matulaic was already banned then.

At North Cheshire Magistrates’ Court on February 13, he was sentenced to 10 weeks in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to complete 80 hours of unpaid work.

He was banned from driving for three-and-ahalf years and must pay a £122 victim surcharge and £85 prosecution costs.

Cheshire police launched a roads crackdown last year following a worrying rise in the numbers of deaths on the county’s roads.