Drink-drive ban for footballer who killed couple while speeding
A FORMER Manchester City youth player who killed a brother and sister while speeding has been banned from the wheel for 22 months after he was caught drink-driving.
Courtney Meppen-Walter, 24, told magistrates he was “embarrassed” at his latest driving offence of being more than twice the legal limit when he was stopped in his vehicle by police in Manchester city centre last month.
In 2013 he was sent to custody for 16 months for causing the deaths of Kulwant Singh, 32, from Salford, and his sister, Ravel Kaur, 37, by careless driving when he hit their Nissan Micra in his grandfather’s high-powered Mercedes C220 saloon in September 2012. Moments earlier, the then 18-year-old had been “jockeying” and “playing games” with a friend in a Volkswagen Golf along a nearby dual carriageway before he travelled at nearly double the 30mph speed limit and hit the Nissan as it emerged from a side street in Manchester.
Yesterday, the now part-time professional footballer and coach was back in court for the drinkdriving offence committed in the early hours of December 10.
Meppen-Walter had met friends at the city’s Christmas markets and intended to have just one drink but consumed several, Manchester Magistrates’ Court heard.
CCTV operators later alerted mobile officers on patrol when the defendant’s Kia Picanto was seen swerving in the road. The vehicle hit a kerb and was stalled at a red light in Great Bridgewater Street when a police constable approached, the court heard.
Meppen-Walter was arrested and taken to a police station where he gave a positive reading of 85 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath – the legal limit being 35mcg.
The court was told that father-of-one Meppen-Walter, who pleaded guilty last month, denied claims he had resisted arrest. Meppen-Walter, of Heywood, plays for Chorley FC in the National League North.