A 61-YEAR-old repeat drink driver has been given a community sentence after admitting his third offence in less than ten years.

Businessman Stephen Davies, from Ingleton, was handed an eight-week curfew, will have to complete seven rehabilitation days, and was banned from driving for three years and ten months.

Skipton magistrates told Davies what he had done was 'staggering' and pointed out whereas most people never drank and drove, he had done it three times in ten years.

The last two occasions, between August and September, had happened within two weeks and on both occasions, he had been stopped by the same police officer, the court heard.

On September 20, he was banned from driving for three years for an offence on August 31, which came within ten years of another identical offence in 2008.

Then, on September 10, this year, when he was still on police bail, he was followed in his car by the police officer to Ingleton Community Centre after driving slowly and weaving from side to side on Main Street.

He provided a positive roadside breath test and was taken to the police station, where a blood test revealed he had 164 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit is 80.

Glen Maude, in mitigation, said Davies, who runs his own electrical engineering business, had been drinking earlier in the day and had not thought he was over the limit.

She added it had been hoped to deal with both offences at the same time, but that it had not been possible.

Ms Maude said Davies had been struggling since the end of a relationship and also suffered health problems.

Davies, of Far Westhouse, Ingleton, was banned from driving for 46 months, to run at the same time as his earlier three-year ban, and will have to complete seven rehabilitation activity requirement days. He will also be fitted with an electronic tag for an eight-week curfew, requiring him to remain inside his house between 7pm and 7am. He will also have to pay costs of £85 and surcharge of £85.

Magistrates did not offer him the opportunity of taking a drink drivers rehabilitation course, which would have reduced his ban, pointing out he had taken it before and it had not worked.