A Tenby man who went out drinking to celebrate getting a new job has been handed a lengthy motoring ban after being caught behind the wheel over the limit some hours later.

Fifty-five-year-old Lyndon Cook, of Serpentine Road, appeared at Haverfordwest Magistrates Court on Tuesday, to plead guilty to a charge of driving a BMW after exceeding the prescribed limit of alcohol.

Prosecutor Vaughan Pritchard-Jones told the court that on February 4 police officers received a report of a suspected drink-driver leaving a store on The Green just before lunchtime.

After police carried out vehicle checks and spoke to Mr. Cook at his home address, he initially denied driving, but CCTV from the store showed him leaving the premises in his vehicle.

The defendant gave a reading of 116 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath.

“The aggravating feature is that he was over three times the legal limit. Mr. Cook told officers that he hadn’t had anything to drink since 2 am, and he was breathalysed at around 1 pm, so that’s 11 hours of metabolising.

“If he is telling the truth, then he must have had a huge amount of alcohol the previous night!

“The defendant told officers he’d had a few beers and then followed that by drinking a bottle of wine up until 2 am,” added Mr. Pritchard-Jones.

Defence solicitor Tom Lloyd told magistrates that his client had indicated that he wasn’t sure if he wanted representation in court as he didn’t want to ‘hide or make excuses’ for his actions.

“He wants to take full responsibility. It hasn’t been an easy few years for Mr. Cook and quite traumatic,” he said, explaining that Mr. Cook had come back to the area from running a business abroad to look after his paraplegic mother, until she passed away and then after his father too.

He explained that Mr. Cook had settled back in Tenby after sacrificing his business abroad, and now ran The Hideout cafe by the North Beach car park, which he was struggling to sell.

“On this particular night, he was out celebrating after securing a second job at Kiln Park at night on security, allowing him to work both at day and night, to make ends meet.

“He was thrilled to get the job and was out celebrating. He knows now in hindsight that he should have never driven the next day. It was a moment of madness, an error of judgement,” added Mr. Lloyd.

Magistrates disqualified Mr. Cook from driving for 28 months and fined him £505 for the offence.

He was also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £85 and a £50 victim surcharge.