Crawley taxi driver caught drink-driving in Skoda with no lights on at night A TAXI driver has been banned from getting behind the wheel for more than a year after he was caught driving above the limit at night with no lights on.
Sussex Police were called when Michael Ricketts was spotted by an alert motorist driving along Hazelwick Avenue, in Three Bridges, in the middle of the night with no lights on his Skoda Superb.
Ricketts was off-duty at the time.
Police arrived at 1.25am on June 20 and arrested Ricketts after he was found to have 61 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 micrograms.
Ricketts, of Caburn Heights, in Southgate, pleaded guilty to drink-driving when he appeared at Crawley Magistrates' Court on 8 July.
He was banned from driving for 17 months, fined £110 and ordered to pay £235 costs and a £20 victim surcharge.
Ricketts is among 59 people who have so far been convicted of offences as part of Sussex Police's summer drink and drug-driving campaign.
Lee Dawson is another who has been convicted after he crashed his car into queueing traffic less than a week after passing his test when he decided to drive home drunk.
The 27-year-old had been on a night out in Brighton but after losing contact with a friend he chose to get behind the wheel, only to smash his Vauxhall Astra into two vehicles waiting at the lights at New England Street at 11.45pm on June 17.
He had 129 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath - almost four times the drink-drive legal limit.
Dawson, of Hearsay Gardens, Camberley, in Surrey, pleaded guilty to drink-driving when he appeared at Brighton Magistrates' Court on 2 July.
He was banned from driving for 30 months, given a 12-week suspended prison sentence, ordered to do 200 hours of community service and told to pay £235 costs and an £80 victim surcharge.
Chief Inspector Phil Nicholas, of Sussex and Surrey roads policing unit, said: "Taking and passing your driving test can be expensive and insuring your first car is also not cheap.
"But Lee Dawson's recklessness in deciding to drive home drunk meant he has thrown away his licence less than a week after he got it.
"Fortunately neither he nor any of the people in the cars that he hit were seriously hurt but they could have been.
"The breathalyser reading shows that he was totally unfit to drive. It was just fortunate that when he was driving through the city centre he did not hit someone before he crashed."
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