A Milford man who crashed his car into a parked vehicle on the way home from the pub in the early hours of the morning has been given a lengthy motoring ban after admitting a drink-drive offence.

Sixty-two-year-old Gerald Stephen Davis, of Robert Street, appeared at Haverfordwest Magistrates Court on Tuesday to plead guilty to a charge of being unfit to drive through drink.

Prosecutor Vaughan Pritchard-Jones told the court that on Monday morning on October 21 a witness phoned the police to report that someone had crashed into their vehicle parked outside their home on St Issells Avenue in Haverfordwest.

“The person said that they had parked the vehicle outside the previous night at around 11 pm, and came outside at 7 am that morning to find that someone had crashed into it.

Police officers searched the area and found Mr. Davis’ Hyundai i10 car parked nearby with damage to its front that was consistent with the damage caused to the complainant’s vehicle.

When police spoke to Mr. Davis he told them ‘I shouldn’t have been driving, I hit a car off the main road gone 3 am, and I’d had a drink in the evening’.

“Mr. Davis gave a roadside sample that was 36 microgrammes, but the readings he gave at the police station were below the legal limit, but they were given at 8 am the morning after he’d been drinking.

“When interviewed by police he said that he’d had dinner with his sister that night and had one glass of red wine, before he went to the pub where he said he probably drank five to six pints of Guinness and a Cognac.

“He told officers that he knew what he was doing when he drove back to his sister’s wearing he was staying, but the fact that he was tired and under the influence of alcohol caused him to collide with the parked car,” added Mr. Pritchard-Jones.

Defence solicitor David Elvy told the court that Mr. Davis had been ‘extremely frank’ in his interview with police, when other defendants may have had a string temptation to tell otherwise about what had occurred.

“The speed he was driving would have been no more than 15 mph when he entered the street, but he did shunt the parked vehicle along.

“He looked around and as it was 3 am, and he could see no lights on at the premises around, and felt that people wouldn’t be very impressed if he went around banging on doors at that time - so he thought he would call back at a more sensible time in the morning, as he was only a short distance away at his sister’s,” added Mr. Elvy.

Magistrates disqualified Mr. Davis from driving for 20 months and fined him £200 for the offence.

He was also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £85 and a £32 victim surcharge.