King's Lynn man caught drink-driving for sixth time

A North Lynn man has been banned from the roads again for his sixth drink-driving offence.

Magistrates disqualified 45-year-old Paul Taylor from driving for 38 months after hearing his latest excess alcohol offence was the second within the last 10 years.

That made him liable for the mandatory minimum three-year ban.

Lynn Magistrates’ Court was told on Thursday that police stopped Taylor in St Edmundsbury Road, where he lives, at just before midnight on February 5.

Police had become suspicious about his driving after spotting the Vauxhall Vectra go over a mini-roundabout in Loke Road and continue briefly on the wrong side of the road.

Taylor failed a roadside test and was arrested. He later gave a reading of 51 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath.

Collette Harper, prosecuting, told the bench: “Mr Taylor is well aware that the legal limit is 35.”

She detailed four previous convictions outside the last ten-year period and another in 2013.

In mitigation, solicitor Ruth Johnson said there would now be an “enormous question mark” over his job as a forklift driver for a food factory.

Referring to what police described as a “strange route”, she said: “The reason why he had taken that route was because the car in front of him was almost brake-checking him.”

She added that her client had been in a difficult period with illness for family members.

Taylor, who pleaded guilty to drink-driving, can cut his ban by 38 weeks through the successful completion of a drink- driver rehabilitation course.

He was fined £120 and told to pay £105 costs plus a £34 victim surcharge.