A Huddersfield man has been ordered to pay over £800 in costs and has been disqualified from driving for more than two years after being charged with two offences relating to alcohol.
Shumaila Qureshi, prosecuting, told magistrates that in late April last year, police officers found Nigel Kilby, of Perseverance Lane, in a car that was parked on double yellow lines.
The officers instructed Mr Kilby to move from the area, but he became argumentative.
He eventually left, but when officers turned up at his address to request a sample, Kilby told them they would have to wait 20 minutes because he had drunk alcohol just before they arrived.
Mr Kilby took another sip of alcohol and was then arrested and taken to a police station, where he again refused to provide a sample.
In January this year, Mr Kilby was seen erratically driving a car, which later crashed into furniture on the street. Members of the public then reported that an intoxicated male was present at the crash scene.
When police officers attended the car crash, they found Kilby “slurring his words” and “smelling of intoxicants”, with one of the officers reporting that Kilby stated he was “on the boozer”.
Mr Kilby was taken to a police station where he admitted he was responsible for the crash and that he had taken some medication in the morning, but gave no other comment on what had happened. He was handed an interim disqualification until a hearing for these charges could take place.
Guilty plea for Huddersfield crash
In March, he pleaded guilty to charges of failing to provide a specimen and the separate drink-driving offence, with sentencing passed down today.
Nigel Whiteley, mitigating, stated that Mr Kilby was “58 years old, and is of good character, with a job as a sales director. He leads an industrious life, has always worked and has always held down employment. But Mr Kilby has an illness – alcohol.”
He went on to note how Mr Kilby had on three separate occasions been to The Priory Clinic, which is an exclusive rehab centre used by the likes of Amy Winehouse, but had relapsed. If he can sort out his alcohol issues, he will not appear before the courts again.”
In sentencing, the magistrate stated that Kilby was at “last chance saloon” and he was close to a prison sentence. He was disqualified from driving for 28 months and handed a community order of 19 months. Kilby was also fined £710 costs alongside a £114 surcharge, for a total of £824 to pay.