Millionaire boss took golf cart on boozy road trip
Over-the-limit director facing prison
A MILLIONAIRE company director took a golf buggy for a spin on a main road while more than four times over the legal alcohol limit.
Colin Peat, 47, i s facing a possible prison sentence after he was caught at the wheel of the cart accelerating along a main road.
Falkirk Sheriff Court heard yesterday that Peat, co- director of asbestos removal company Central Demolition, was stopped on Stirling Road in Larbert, near Falkirk Golf Course, on June 5.
He was given a breath test and provided a sample that contained 97 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres – more than four times the legal limit of 22.
It quickly emerged that Peat was not insured to drive the unregistered vehicle on t he public highway.
Peat, of Bonnybridge, Stirlingshire, pleaded guilty to drinkdriving and driving the golf cart without insurance.
The court heard evidence exposing Peat as a serial motoring offender. Sheriff Craig Caldwell deferred sentence to November 12 for background reports.
He told Peat: ‘You were nearly five times the limit and at that level you shouldn’t have been anywhere near a cart – let alone driving one.
‘This is your third significant road traffic offence within a few years. It is clear there will be a substantial period of disqualification, but as a result of your record and the substantial reading I am going to consider all options, including custody.’
The golf cart at the centre of the drink-driving case is understood to be privately owned by Peat. Out- side the court, Peat said: ‘It was a golf cart – no comment.’
Nobody at his Bonnybridge-based company was available to comment on their boss’s guilty plea.
In 2007, Central Demolition was fined £50,000 at Edinburgh Sheriff Court for its part in a fatal incident in which excavator driver Gideon Irvine, 45, died after a 120ft building collapsed as he worked inside.
The company admitted the work site was unsafe as important structural information had not been submitted. Mr Irvine’s widow, Jacqueline, described the fine at the time as ‘outrageous’. She said: ‘Money is nothing to them.’