A beautician and a shop worker, both from Brighton, have been banned from the road after being arrested during the annual Christmas crackdown on drink and drug driving.
Sussex Police said that the pair were among the latest 15 people to have been disqualified from driving after their arrest last month.
Korina Pagkali, 35, a beautician, of Richmond Terrace, Brighton, was arrested in Ditchling Road, Brighton, on Tuesday 2 December, after she jumped a traffic light in a black Peugeot.
She was charged with driving with 41 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, failing to obey traffic lights and failing to comply with a traffic sign. The legal limit is 35 micrograms.
At Brighton Magistrates’ Court on Thursday 15 January, she was banned from driving for 14 months, fined £240 and ordered to pay £85 costs and a £96 victim surcharge.
Jamie Cornwall, 40, a shop assistant, of Ashdown Avenue, Saltdean, was arrested in Crowhurst Road, Hollingbury, on Tuesday 2 December and charged with failing to provide a specimen of breath for analysis.
At Brighton Magistrates’ Court on Thursday 15 January, he was banned from driving for four years.
He was ordered to undergo a four-month alcohol abstinence requirement and pay £85 costs and a £114 victim surcharge.
Among the other cases was a teenage drink driver who walked away from the wreckage of his crashed car having had a “very lucky” escape.
He was arrested when police were called to a report of an overturned Vauxhall Corsa on the A27 at Tangmere at about 5am on Friday 12 December.
The driver and sole occupant identified himself as 18-year-old Oliver Durrant, a rail worker, of St Winifred’s Close, Bognor.
He was checked over at the scene by paramedics who said that he was “very lucky” not to have killed or seriously injured himself or anyone else.
Durrant admitted that he “shouldn’t have driven” and, in his police interview, he disclosed that he had been driving home from a night out in Chichester having had several alcoholic drinks.
He was breathalysed and found to have 52 micrograms of alcohol in 100ml of breath.
He was charged with drink driving and appeared at Worthing Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday 13 January.
He was banned from driving for 14 months, fined £350 and ordered to pay £85 costs and a £140 victim surcharge.
Have absolutely no sympathy with drink and drug drivers, the times should be bigger, 5 year ban 1st offence 10years fir 2nd and life time ban after that. It’s very painful when you lose someone, because of an impaired driver
Agreed. One of the worse injures I’ve come across involved drug drivers and bifurcation.
Comment to Alex Matthews: I don’t have sympathy for impaired drivers due to alcohol or drugs. Punishment should be even much harder then you suggest, 10 years disqualified for 1st offence and life for subsequent offences. If you then drive it should be compulsory custodial sentences like it was in the 90s and early 2000s.
1000% agree,my brother and I were in a drunk driver hit and run he killed my 17 year old brother and left me with life long injuries, x
Sorry sorry to hear of your loss,had a relative left with severe injury from a drunk driver, no insurance as well
Maybe the police should try investigating crime rather than preying on drivers who may inadvertently be slightly over the limit?
So you don’t see this as criminal behaviour? Are you the sort of person who drives over the limit through drink or drugs? Statistics show that these sort of drivers are regularly involved in other crimes. It’s only a bit of “blow” until you kill a child because your capabilities are impaired. Can you live with that? If so, please send me your itinerary in order that I can avoid your area.
That’s a strawman, Steven. Drink-driving enforcement *is* a form of crime investigation. There’s no scenario where a driver is “inadvertently” over the limit. You make a choice to drink, you choose to drive, you live with the consequences of what is clearly an unwise decision.