The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
A Holbeach farm worker who crashed his car into the back of another car after drinking alcohol, has been banned from driving for four years.
Andrei Pavel, 35, of Washway Road, admitted driving with excess alcohol when he appeared before district Judge Peter Veits sitting at Boston Magistrates Court.
Prosecuting, Marie Stace said police were called to a two vehicle collision on the A17 at Gedney Road, Spalding on December 11 after Pavel had crashed his Vauxhall Corsa car into the back of an Audi.
She said Pavel provided a positive breath test and was arrested, but was taken to hospital for a check up and could not provide the sample for four hours, which gave a reading then of 73 microgrammes of alcohol, the legal limit being 35.
Ms Stace said he admitted to police that he had drunk ‘four or five pints’.
The court heard that Pavel had a similar conviction in 2016.
Mitigating, Philippa Chatterton said Pavel had ‘no excuses to make’ and that ‘the collision was likely due to his level of alcohol’.
Judge Veits told Pavel he ‘should have been nowhere near a car’ and that he was ‘very lucky’ he didn’t kill anyone.
Judge Veits said that the initial breath test had revealed a reading of 120 and if that had been the evidential reading, he might have very well sent him to prison, but that he had to take the reading taken four hours later.
Pavel was fined £400 and ordered to pay a total of £125 in court costs and charges.
He was banned from driving for four years but was offered the drink drivers’ rehabilitation course, which
will reduce the period of the ban by a year.
