Coningsby drink-driver sentenced after late night McDonald’s trip

Darren Maltby, 51, of Ingham Road, admitted driving with excess alcohol when he appeared at Boston Magistrates’ Court on January 7.

Prosecuting, Shelley Wilson said a member of the public reported Maltby to the police after he arrived intoxicated at McDonald’s just before midnight on October 31 last year, driving his Mercedes-Benz car.

She said police intercepted him in his car in Lister Way, Boston and he was stopped and failed a breath test and was arrested.

She said he gave a breath sample measuring 73 micrograms of alcohol, more than twice the legal limit of 35.

Mrs Wilson said he had three previous similar convictions, the last of which was in October 2013.

Mitigating, Philippa Chatterton said Maltby was a carer for his partner, and that he’d had no intention of leaving the house that night.

However, she said that he had gone out for a walk after he and his partner had an argument and when he returned he found she had locked him out of the house.

She said he decided to sleep in the car but as he was cold and hungry and needed to go to the toilet, he decided to go to McDonald’s to buy food and use their toilet, but found that only their drive-through facility was open.

The magistrates said it was his fourth time in court for driving with excess alcohol and told him that it was ‘a shame you haven’t learnt your lesson’.

Maltby was banned from driving for 40 months, but was offered the drink drivers’ rehabilitation course which will reduce the period of the ban by 40 weeks. He was also fined £120 and ordered to pay £119 in court costs and charges.