A DRINK driver was caught after he drove past police while using his mobile phone, York magistrates heard.

Officers saw David Raymond Powell balancing his phone on his steering wheel and operating its touchscreen as he drove along Ridgeway, Acomb, said Joe Culley, prosecuting.

They followed him to talk to him about his illegal use of the phone.

But when he stopped of his own accord in Cranfield Place, Foxwood, and was approached, the officers smelt alcohol.

They took him to Fulford Road Police Station where a breath test gave a reading of 42 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35.

Powell, 33, of White Cross Road, Haxby, pleaded guilty to using a mobile phone while driving and drink driving. Both offences were committed in the early evening of August 18.

He was banned from driving for 14 months, fined £320 and ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs and a £32 statutory surcharge.

He told the officers by the roadside about the mobile phone: “I wasn’t actually using it, I was changing the music on it.”

He represented himself in court where he told the bench he had had two pints of Guinness and nothing to eat before he started driving.

When magistrates told him how much he had to pay per month to meet their financial orders, he shook his head and said they wouldn’t get it.

He said he expected his income to reduce as the weather got worse.

But magistrates insisted on him paying at the rate they had set.