A YORK drink-driver who repeatedly flouts motoring bans has been jailed for six months and ordered off the road for a minimum of five years.

Robert Dennis Birch, 24, has been caught drinking and driving three times this year - despite magistrates banning him after his first conviction, a court heard. Police caught him driving in Walmgate when he was three times the legal alcohol limit less than a month after the ban was imposed, prosecutor Jane Chadwick told York magistrates.

He skipped bail and spent three months on the run until a passer-by found him slumped over the wheel of his car at 2.30am on Saturday, near Stockton Lane,York. The car had been involved in an accident and Birch was two-and-a-half times the alcohol limit. He has been in custody ever since.

York magistrates jailed him for six months, banned him from driving for five years and ordered him to retake his driving test. They told him he had risked other people's lives.

They were sentencing Birch, of Melrosegate, Tang Hall, after he admitted seven offences, including drink-driving, driving while disqualified and without insurance on April 7, drink-driving, driving while disqualified and without insurance on August 24, and failure to attend court on May 3.

They heard their colleagues banned Birch from driving on March 13 for drink-driving.

The latest convictions mean that Birch cannot get a licence after his ban ends unless he convinces the Driver Vehicle Licensing Authority he does not have an alcohol problem and if he succeeds, he can only drive as a learner driver until he repasses his driving test.

Defence solicitor Harry Bayman said the March driving ban had cost Birch his job. He had missed his court date in May because he had got a new job in Middlesbrough.

Updated: 12:19 Thursday, August 29, 2002