A DRINK-DRIVER is starting a prison sentence after coming to the rescue of a Selby woman who was being hounded out of her home.

Steven John Williams pleaded guilty to driving while over the limit, without insurance and while disqualified when he appeared at Selby Magistrates Court.

Keith Haggerty, mitigating, said the woman had asked 41-year-old Williams to help her move her possessions to a new house in Sherburn-in-Elmet on a number of occasions, before he agreed to help on Monday, February 23.

“The reason she wanted to move was that she was being victimised,” said Mr Haggerty.

“She’d had paint thrown on her house, rubbish thrown in her garden and pushed through her letterbox.”

Mr Haggerty said Williams, of Moorhouse Avenue, Wakefield, had drunk no more than two pints of beer that night, when he borrowed a van from a friend and drove to the woman’s house.

“After they had moved some of her possessions to Sherburn, they went to the pub, he said.

“He went to the pub with her and then drove off and was stopped within a mile of setting off on that journey,” said Mr Haggerty. “He was giving in to pressure from a very desperate woman who needed help.”

Prosecutor Sandra Potter said police had stopped Williams on Moorlands Lane, in Sherburn, at about 12.30am on Tuesday, February 24. “The officers smelled alcohol on him and he refused to give a breath test,” she said.

The police arrested him, she said, and when he was breathalysed at the station, he was nearly twice the legal limit, with 63 microgrammes of alcohol in 100ml of breath.

Miss Potter said Williams had three previous drink-driving convictions – in 1998, 2002 and 2007. On the last occasion, he had been given a 12-month suspended sentence, which had only run its course three months ago. He was disqualified from driving until 2011.

Mr Haggerty said: “There are cases where a defendant has to accept the inevitable and this is one of them.

“He went through the drink-driving scheme, he told them it was all eminently sensible and good advice. But when he’s been drinking, he finds it hard to apply that to his own life.

“I don’t want to make his situation any harder than it is, but there are few courts that would consider a non-custodial sentence.”

Williams was given a 16-week prison sentence for driving while over the limit and 16 weeks for driving while disqualified, to run concurrently. He was also banned from driving for four years.

Ron Humphries, the chairman of the bench, said: “You’re a danger to yourself and, more so, the public.

“Anyone who drives over the prescribed limit and without insurance as well, has reached the custodial threshold.”