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A young driver was found slumped over the wheel of his car with empty beer cans in the vehicle which was parked outside a Derbyshire school. South Derbyshire Magistrates Court heard Lewis Mercer “stumble out” of the car when police woke him up after a concerned member of the public called officers to the scene.

The 23-year-old failed a roadside breath test but said he had parked there instead of driving back to his home in Nottingham. The bank president said: “Your position on him is aggravated because the car was near a school at 8:30 am and you were in the car while you were over the limit.”

Lynn Bickley’s prosecution said that at 7:25 a.m. on February 8 of this year, police received a call from a member of the public saying that a man was slumped over the wheel of a car parked in front of a school in Hopwell Road, Draycott. She said the officers arrived at 7:50 am and the defendant was still in the same position.

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The prosecutor said: “They woke the man up and asked him to open the door and they saw him put his keys in the ignition and turn them halfway. He didn’t respond to their request so they took the keys out of the ignition and they could smell alcohol and he noticed there was some empty beer cans inside the vehicle.

“He was asked to get out of the vehicle and stumbled and then took a roadside breath test which came back positive and he was arrested. He then gave an additional (evidential) reading of 46 (micrograms of alcohol in 100 milliliters of breath when the legal limit is 35).

“In the interview, he said he had picked up a friend in Draycott and they had driven to Bulwell (in Nottingham) where they had a few cans of beer and then his friend drove back to Draycott. He said his friend then went home and stayed in the car.”

Mercer, of Garton Close, Bulwell, pleaded guilty to being in charge of a vehicle while exceeding the prescribed alcohol limit. He has no criminal record.

Simon Stevens, mitigating, said his client had chosen to stay in the car rather than drive home to Nottingham because he had been drinking. He said: “Him stumbling on the road was probably due to the police waking him up rather than being intoxicated.”

The magistrates fined him £80, ordered him to pay £85 for prosecution costs, a £32 victim surcharge and approved his license with 10 penalty points.

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