A TAXI driver has been jailed for nine months for picking up a passenger after he had drunk a bottle of vodka – leaving his passenger so traumatised she needed counselling.
Christopher May was found to be three times over the drink-drive limit when he collected BP executive Catherine Ross-Innes from Avonmouth to take her to Bristol Parkway train station. He was so drunk he could hardly open the door, Bristol Crown Court heard.
He struggled to release the handbrake before driving off on the wrong side of the road straight towards an on-coming articulated lorry.
When Miss Ross-Innes told him to stop because she needed to use her phone, she got out and refused to get back in – leaving May to continue his death-defying journey up the M5 before his taxi hit the kerb on the A38 and burst two tyres.
When a motorist stopped and said police were on their way, May replied: "Good".
May, 55, of White Lodge Road, Fishponds, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and driving with excess alcohol.
Jailing him, Judge Mark Horton told him: "You were, at the time, a public service vehicle driver, a taxi driver taking care of members of the public in your charge."
The judge banned May from driving for three years and ordered him to pass an extended driving test.
John Penny, prosecuting, said May was a sub-contractor driver for Portishead-based Amcar UK when he collected Ms Ross-Innes from Avonmouth on October 29 last year.
He said: "Miss Ross-Innes thought something was a bit odd. He opened the door clumsily and she had to squeeze past to get in. As she sat in the passenger seat she smelled alcohol. He went to the driver's seat, hit his knee getting in and had difficulty disengaging the hand brake. He drove out of the car park of the depot, took a junction without slowing down and set off on a small road on the wrong side before an articulated lorry sounded its horn a number of times and he swerved on to his own side of the road."
Mr Fryer said Miss Ross-Innes was alarmed as the driver then slipped the car into first gear and left it, drifting to the wrong side of the road.
He said: "Another lorry swerved and after about half a mile Miss Ross-Innes asked Mr May to pull over because she had an urgent telephone call."
The court heard Miss Ross-Innes suffered nightmares and had counselling.
By 4.15pm, driver Paul Nightingale watched in horror as May left the M5 slip road, almost hitting the barrier.
Nigel Fryer, defending, said his client hit the lowest point of his life and was possibly suffering from a breakdown after his wife's recent affair.
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/courts/T ... ticle.html
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