On 11/01/2024 12:00 pm, Simon Mason wrote:

On Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at 5:02:03 PM UTC, Simon Mason wrote:

A POWYS man has been fined nearly £700 and banned from the roads for a year after admitting drink driving.
Ashley James Jones had admitted the charge in November but his case had been adjourned so he could argue special reasons as to why he was driving.
Jones, 26, was driving a Volkswagen Golf on an unclassified road near his home in Llanddewi, near Llandrindod Wells, on October 19, 2023.
He had 50 micrograms of alcohol in his breath – the legal limit is 35 micrograms.
At Llandrindod Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, January 3, Jones, of Cwmquarry, Llanddewi, Jones was fined £400 for the offence. He was also told to pay a £160 surcharge and £135 costs.
Magistrates banned him from driving for 12 months but he can reduce this by three months if he successfully completes a drink driving rehabilitation course.
https://www.countytimes.co.uk/news/24028850.powys-drink-driver-fined-loses-licence-year/

Anyone know what these "special reasons" for drunk driving were?

I know the wort of thing they CAN be, but you, M'Lud, will be more aware
then I of what might constitute "special reasons" and the circumstances
in which they might extenuate the offence to some degree. The fact that
the defendant may still be able to get his ban down from 12 months to 9
months does suggest that something unusual happened in court, even
though not reported by the County Times, n'est-ce-pas?

Nope? No surprise there then.

50/35 is hardly "drunk".

It might make a 14-yr-old girl visibly impaired, but even *you* would
still be relatively high functioning after a mere three pints of lager,
whether drunk in a pub, in a lounge armchair or in a hole in a garage floor.

But, OTOH, it is a breathalyser fail. A fail on the breath or blood test
does not require the person tested to be what any sensible person would
call "drunk".

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