By Staff Reporter

Last updated at 11:37, Saturday, 15 September 2012

A MAN whose driving was so terrifying a woman pedestrian passed out on the pavement in shock has been sent to prison for nine months and banned from driving for 18 months.

Paul Geoffrey Davidson was three-and-a-half times over the legal drink-drive limit when he was taken to hospital after crashing his car at the end of a half-mile drunken escapade through Stanwix, Carlisle, late one night in March.

He told police after his arrest that, though he could remember little of what had happened, he knew he had downed about ten pints shortly beforehand.

At Carlisle Crown Court yesterday Davidson, 46, of Caird Crescent, Belah, Carlisle, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and driving with excess alcohol.

The judge told him he was lucky not to have killed himself – or someone else.

Prosecutor Alan Lovett told the court Davidson had worked a full day as a painter and decorator at the city's Tullie House museum, after sleeping for a “very short time” at the end of his night shift at the Cavaghan and Gray factory.

He had gone for a pint at the Crown and Thistle pub in Stanwix, where he watched football on the television before walking into the city for more drinks at a club where there was live music.

Much later in the evening, Mr Lovett said, people in Etterby Street saw him driving his car too fast and erratically.

He crashed into a line of cars on his right-hand side, and overtook two vehicles causing an oncoming driver to take emergency action to avoid a collision.

Then, Mr Lovett said, he drove at “well over the 30mph speed limit” and crashed into a parked car.

The court heard that a woman on the pavement was so frightened as she felt the wind of his car going past that she collapsed in shock.

She later suggested that he had been driving at 100mph, though Mr Lovett said this was “her perception rather than reality”.

Defence advocate Chris Toms said Davidson had not intended to drive after going to the pub.

It was only the alcohol he then drank that made him think driving home would be a good idea, he said.

Mr Toms said Davidson was now so overcome with remorse he had vowed never to drive again.

Mr Toms pleaded with the judge not to send Davidson to prison, saying it would bring “financial ruin” on him and his family. But the judge, Recorder Andrew Nuttall, said the case was so serious a custodial sentence was inevitable.

“For the time you were behind the wheel of your car you were a menace,” he told him.

“It is a miracle that nobody was killed or seriously injured. You were dangerous in every sense of the word.”

The judge said he had been impressed by character references on Davidson's behalf.

“I have no doubt that in all other aspects of your life you are a thoroughly decent, hard working man,” he told him.

First published at 10:53, Saturday, 15 September 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk