Motorist six times the drink drive limit

A FOOTBALL club’s head groundsman has been jailed after recording the highest drink driving reading a judge had ever seen.

Swindon Town’s Marcus Cassidy, 40, was caught behind the wheel of a Mercedes Sprinter on the M6 with his lights off and weaving in his lane at 40mph.

He has now been jailed for three and a half months at Swindon Magistrates’ Court for being six times over the drink drive limit.

District Judge Joanna Dickens said it was “the highest reading I have ever seen and I have been in this business for a very, very long period of time”.

Prosecutor Ben Worthington said Cassidy sped away from the officer who tried to pull him over at around 9.15pm on March 6.

He was brought to a halt at Junction 14, near Stafford.

He blew 205mcgs of alcohol in 100ml of breath at the roadside, then blew a lower reading of 194mcgs when he was taken to the police station. The legal limit is 35.

District Judge Dickens jailed him for 14 weeks, saying: “This is an incredibly serious offence. It is the worst offence of drink driving I have ever seen.”

She said the reading was so high she feared the driver might have died from alcohol poisoning. “It is so serious that only custody can be imposed,” the judge added.

Cassidy’s lawyer, Mark Glendenning, said his client had long suffered with alcoholism.

His difficulties had been made worse by lockdown and he had drunk in order to “numb his brain”. His doctor had diagnosed him with adult ADHD.

Since the offence he had been working with a Gloucestershire addiction service to reduce his drinking. He had cut his intake to nothing by the morning of his sentence.

The court heard Cassidy would lose both his job and his Swindon Town tied accommodation if he were sent to prison, although he was realistic that custody or a suspended sentence was the likely outcome.

The head groundsman had won awards for his groundskeeping. Cassidy had shown a “considerable amount of remorse and a considerable amount of shame”, Mr Glendenning said.

The groundsman’s reason for being on the M6 on March 6 was not given in court.

The court was told he had last been convicted of driving with excess alcohol in 2012.

Cassidy, of Glen Court, Stonehouse, admitted drink driving at an earlier hearing.

He was banned from driving for five years.