THE secretary of a working men’s club is off the road for 20 months after he was caught driving at twice the drink-drive limit.

Sam Law, prosecuting, told York magistrates that police followed Raymond Michael Fligg’s car because it was driving without lights at 11.30pm on Monday, May 5, and officers were concerned about its speed. It drove from St Clements Working Men’s Club where Fligg had been working to nearby Trafalgar Street off Bishopthorpe Road, York, where it stopped.

A breath test gave a reading of 72 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35.

Fligg, 62, of Grantham Drive, Acomb, pleaded guilty to drink driving and was ordered to pay £745 including a £600 fine, £60 statutory surcharge and £85 prosecution costs. He was also banned from driving for 20 months.

His solicitor Chris McGrogan said he had spent the day doing office work at the club while a carpenter did some work there.

“At the end of the day they had a drink,” he said. “One thing led to another and it got to the late hours of the evening. He was aware he had had quite a bit to drink and had arranged for his son to come and collect him.”

But the carpenter was concerned about his tools’ safety as they were in the secretary’s car and persuaded Fligg to move it from the badly-lit club car park to a better lit area. Fligg had driven the car “very slowly”, said the solicitor.

Fligg’s son had been “extremely severe” on him. The solicitor said of the father: “He feels extremely ashamed of what he has done.”

District judge Adrian Lower said: “I can only conclude you cannot have been thinking straight .”