A MOTORIST is facing the loss of his 20-year-old business because he went driving after he had had two drinking sessions, York magistrates heard.

Spencer Douglas Ellis, 50, was twice the drink drive limit when police stopped him on Wenlock Terrace at 8pm on June 14, said Martin Butterworth, prosecuting.

They had seen him driving along Fulford Road and believed he had been speeding in his transit van.

Victoria Latham, defending, said the reason he had been stopped was because his van didn’t have a valid MOT certificate.

He had twice drunk alcohol that day without eating – when he had a glass of wine or two at lunchtime and when he had a pint in a pub in the evening.

He needed his van for his work as a landscape gardener to travel between jobs.

“He has built up and had a successful business for 20 years,” she said. “It is something he is going to have to let go.”

Ellis, of Holly Terrace, off Fulford Road, York, pleaded guilty to drink driving and was banned from driving for 18 months. He was also fined £250 with £85 prosecution costs and a £30 statutory surcharge.

Mr Butterworth said Ellis gave a reading of 70 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 micrograms.

Ms Latham said he had felt well and fit enough to drive, as had his partner, who was in the van with him.

“He is thoroughly ashamed of his actions,” she said.

Ellis was having problems coping with the death of his mother three years earlier, and was not eating properly. For that reason, his partner had met him earlier in the evening at a club to ensure that he did eat.

But the wait for food service was one hour, so they had gone to a pub instead.

He had several landscape gardening contracts around York where he did an hour or two before going onto the next, and worked by himself, so he didn’t have anyone to drive him.

The van's MOT certificate had lapsed and he had forgotten to have the van retested.