A DRUNK driver from Rugby whose drinking cost him his business has escaped being jailed after he drove over the limit while under a suspended prison sentence.
Magistrates had sent Javan Linehan to Warwick Crown Court after he admitted the excess alcohol offence and being in breach of his suspended sentence.
But a judge decided it would be ‘unjust’ to activate any of the 18-month sentence imposed on Linehan, of Reservoir Road, at the crown court in January last year.
Instead, the 33 year-old was ordered to take part in a rehabilitation activity for ten days for the breach – and was given no penalty for the excess alcohol offence apart from being disqualified for 40 months.
Prosecutor Amy Jackson said at 11.30pm on February 5, the police noticed Linehan driving quickly along Hillmorton Road swerving slightly and indicating without turning.
So they followed him, and when he stopped and they went over to talk to him, his speech was slurred, and he admitted he had drunk ‘a little.’
Having failed a breath test, he was arrested, and a second test gave a reading which was just over twice the legal alcohol limit.
At the time Linehan, who had previous convictions for dishonesty and one for excess alcohol, was subject to the suspended sentence imposed for a burglary – at a house in Grosvenor Road in the summer of 2014.
David Everett, defending, said Linehan was ‘a man who has some abilities,’ but while studying graphic design at university he had fallen into the wrong crowd and began drinking too much.
That led to him leaving university, and he then started his own company dealing in corporate workwear printing – which folded as a result of him losing his licence following an excess alcohol conviction in 2008.
“Pretty much all of his convictions are drink related, and indeed he does smell of drink today,” said Mr Everett.
He explained on the night he was stopped in Rugby Linehan had been drinking at home and had not been planning to go out, but had had a call from his father to pick him up from Rugby railway station.
Recorder Charles Foster told Linehan: “You are in breach of the suspended sentence by reason of you driving with excess alcohol; but I take the view, however, that it would be unjust to impose that sentence.”
