TWO PINTS have led to a new father being banned from the roads for three years

David Lloyd Ward, 37, will also be confined indoors throughout the festive season and had his car confiscated.

York magistrates heard he failed to take a drink drivers rehabilitation course offered by magistrates after he was convicted of drink driving in 2011.

For him, Lee-Anne Robins-Hicks said he regretted his actions. He had only had two pints so didn't believe he would be over the limit.

Senior magistrate Richard Goodacre, sitting with two colleagues told him: "The way to avoid a conviction for drink driving is not to drink at all."

Martin Butterworth, prosecuting, said police pulled Ward over on Wetherby Road, York, in the early hours of October 21 because his car was not insured.

A roadside breath test revealed he was over the drink drive limit, but when asked to take a police station breath test that could be used as evidence in court, he refused.

Mr Butterworth said the prosecution case was that this was a "deliberate refusal".

Mrs Robins-Hicks said Ward suffered from depression and anxiety and this had affected his ability to give the police station breath test.

He would now have family difficulties because he had a newborn baby and helped out his elderly mother.

Ward, of Chapelfields Road and Pateley Place, both Acomb, pleaded guilty to failure to take a breath test and driving without insurance.

In addition to a three-year driving ban, Ward was given an eight-week curfew from 8pm to 7am every night and ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs and an £85 statutory surcharge.

His car had been confiscated under an uninsured drivers' scheme.

Mrs Robins-Hicks said Ward had just bought the car privately from a trader and had been told it would be insured by the trader for a few days until he could pay for his own insurance.

Magistrates said the claim "beggars belief".