A DRUNKEN dad downed five cans of lager — before jumping into his car to do the school run.
Boozy Steven Dunn, 32, has been banned from the roads for four years after driving with his sons, six and eight, in the back seat.
Dunn, of St Peter’s Street, Stapenhill, had consumed a ‘vast amount of alcohol’ the night before and polished off a further five cans on the day of the offence.
Emma Thompson, prosecuting at Burton Magistrates’ Court, said: “He had his two sons in the car when he was pulled over.
“It quickly became apparent that he was unfit through drink. He was more than three times the drink-driving limit.”
Dunn claimed he felt ‘fit to drive’ even though he had been drinking for four hours straight that afternoon and had eaten nothing all day.
The two boys were picked up from Burton Police Station by their mother after Dunn was arrested.
Magistrates heard the school was just 10 minutes’ walk from the family home, but Dunn had decided to drive as he was running late.
Sonia Lawrence, defending, said her client had a ‘problem with alcohol’ and had been stashing booze in his car to drink secretly.
Miss Lawrence said: “He has been drinking to excess and has had a dependency for 12 months.
“His wife (the boys’ mother) would have been horrified if she had known the extent of his drinking and she was horrified to find he had been drinking and then picked up the children.”
Dunn’s wife is due to give birth to another child in 11 weeks’ time.
He was pulled over while driving his Ford Fiesta car in Stanton Road, Stapenhill, at around 4pm on April 30.
He was found to have 110 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath when tested. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes.
Dunn, who was previously convicted of drink-driving in 2008, was sentenced to a 48-month ban and told to complete a 12-month community order and a drink-driving awareness programme.
Two additional charges of being drunk in charge of a child and ill treatment of a child were withdrawn by magistrates.
Dunn pleaded guilty to drink-driving.
