A former fitness instructor wept yesterday as he was jailed for committing his third drink driving offence.
Martyn Daniel was locked up for four months and disqualified for four years after a sheriff told him he was “grossly irresponsible”.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard the 31-year-old committed his most recent offence on September 9 last year after he had been working at a cookery school.
Fiscal depute Jonathan Ward said police officers on mobile patrol had noticed his red Audi A3 driving along Bon Accord Terrace at around 6am without any lights on.
He said the officers signalled for Daniel to stop and when they pulled him over they noticed he was smelling strongly of alcohol and slurring his words.
Mr Ward said that when Daniel tried to get out of the car he “noticeably stumbled” and was unsteady on his feet.
The court heard Ward told police officers he had been drinking, however, he refused to have a breath test.
When Daniel was taken to the police station in the city-centre a police surgeon confirmed he was unfit to drive through drink or drugs.
Representing Daniel yesterday, solicitor Les Green said his client had been working with bottles of alcohol throughout the night and had spilled some on himself, which was why his clothes smelled so strongly.
The court heard that Daniel, of 10 Claremont Grove, Aberdeen, had also been suffering from a headache the previous evening and had taken two sleeping tablets, which he had mistaken for painkillers.
Mr Green said the pills, alongside two cans of beer he admitted drinking, had made him extremely drowsy.
The solicitor asked sheriff Kenneth Stewart to consider imposing a community payback order instead of sending his client to jail.
He said that despite two other convictions for drink driving in 2009 and 2001 his client had now learned his lesson and was “terrified” of going to jail.
However, Sheriff Stewart said there was realistically no alternative than to impose a custodial sentence given that he had continue to offend.