Ban after drink-driving and drug offences in Louth and Skegness

A man admitted driving with excess alcohol and failing to provide a sample for a drugs test on separate occasions - including one on the Louth by-pass - when he appeared at Boston Magistrates' Court yesterday (January 2).
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George Middlemiss, 30, of Albany Road, Skegness, admitted failing to provide a specimen of blood for analysis after testing positive for cannabis when he was driving along Grand Parade on December 2, and also to driving with excess alcohol on the Louth by-pass on Christmas morning.

Nick Todd, prosecuting, said Middlemiss, who had no prior convictions, was checked by police in Skegness at 8.45pm on December 2 because the car had no MOT test certificate, and tested positive for cannabis from a mouth swab.

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He was arrested but refused to give a blood sample at the police station.

He said that at 2.13am on December 25, he was stopped on the Louth by-pass after being seen driving erratically and gave a reading of 70 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, the legal limit being 35.

Philippa Chatterton, mitigating, said Middlemiss had only just bought the car and had been told that the MOT had until 2019 to run, but in fact it had run out on November 29.

She said he had admitted to smoking cannabis but had a phobia of needles and so would not give a blood sample, which is the only way of testing.

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In the second offence, she said he had been out for Christmas drinks and had ‘taken a risk and driven home’.

She said Middlemiss was self employed and so would not be able to drive to his appointments after he was disqualified.

Middlemiss was banned from driving for 12 months for the drugs offence and 20 months for the excess alcohol offence to run concurrently, although he was offered a drink drivers’ rehabilitation course which will reduce the period of the ban by 20 weeks.

He was also fined a total of £300 and ordered to pay £115 in costs and charges.