Factory worker banned from driving for 12 months

Martynas Kucinskas (33) from Kalendra Court, Dungannon, was also fined £300 with a £15 offender's levy for driving while having consumed excess alcohol.

Dungannon Magistrates Court heard on Friday (October 21) that police travelling on the Moy Road located a BMW car with its hazard lights and saw it had sustained frontal damage.

Prosecuting counsel said the vehicle’s airbags were deployed and they spoke to the defendant who was standing nearby.

She said he had a glazed facial expression and police noticed he was unsteady on his feet. He provided a preliminary breath specimen which showed an alcohol reading of 90mgs.

Counsel said he was arrested and later provided an evidential specimen that revealed an alcohol count of 70mg.

A defence solicitor explained the defendant has been living 12 years in Northern Ireland and has not come to police attention in that time.

He said he was a team leader at a meat factory and asked the court to consider the incident as “an aberration”.

The solicitor stressed that the defendant was not a man who has an alcohol problem, or difficulty with alcohol, and had cooperated fully with the police.

He pleaded with the court to keep the disqualification to a minimum given the defendant's early plea and family circumstances.

Imposing the penalities, District Judge Michael Ranaghan remarked it was a high reading but he would keep the disqualification to a year.