A BUS driver drank five pints before taking his passengers on a terrifying journey around York’s icy roads as they pleaded for him to stop, magistrates heard.

The frightened shoppers, on a Christmas trip to York from Manchester, repeatedly begged driver Patrick Jonathan Burke to pull up as he veered from lane to lane on the slush and ice-covered A64 between York and Bilbrough, said Simon Ostler, prosecuting.

Two passengers had already insisted on making their own way back home after Burke crashed into roadside barricades and tried to go the wrong way round the one-way system between Leeman Road and Rougier Street on his way out of York.

When Burke did pull up on the A64, he parked the coach partly on a slip-road and partly on the carriageway and turned out the lights.

Terrified another vehicle would hit them in the dark, the busload of more than 30 passengers forced him to turn the lights back on and got him out of the driver’s seat before contacting police, said Mr Ostler.

He had drunk five pints, was nearly twice the drink-driving limit at 63mg of alcohol 100ml of breath, and his behaviour was so abnormal a 12-year-old girl said he had been drinking before they started the return journey. But when the trip’s organiser, Tracy Fish, asked him, Burke denied he had been drinking.

“In all the years I and my colleagues have sat on this bench, we have never heard such an appalling catalogue of events,” said senior magistrate Christine Dennis at Selby court. “What your passengers must have been going through with this standard of driving. It is a miracle the 37 passengers left your bus unharmed.”

Burke, 52, of Councillor Lane, Cheadle, pleaded guilty to drink-driving, careless driving and failure to stop after an accident. He was given a community order with 300 hours’ unpaid work, banned from driving for three years and ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs.

His solicitor, Sandra Keen, said the coach company had sacked him because of the incident.

Mr Ostler said the 37 passengers of all ages, including children, came to York for Christmas shopping. On their arrival early on December 5, Burke asked them to leave earlier than planned because he was concerned about the weather’s effect on driving. He told them he would have lunch at Wetherspoons.

Mrs Keen said Burke had behaved out of character. He accepted he had an alcohol problem which he was trying to do something about it and he apologised to all the passengers.