A JUDGE has told a HGV driver that he risked “destroying lives” by driving his wagon at more than three times over the drink drive limit.

Newton Ayton Magistrates’ Court heard today (Thursday, February 11) that 56-year-old Paul McKinley was pulled over on the A1 at Coatham Mundeville near Darlington on January 26.

He was driving a HGV for a recycling company and had just visited Darlington’s household waste facility when the police were tipped off about the possibility he was under the influence of alcohol.

McKinley, of Cherwell, Washington, admitted drink driving and the court heard that the amount of alcohol in his breath at the time he was stopped was 118mg – more than triple the 35mg legal limit.

Mitigating, Nick Woodhouse said that McKinley admitted to drinking two cans of lager every night, but the night before he drove his HGV he had met up with an old friend and drank two large whiskeys on top of the lager.

District Judge Martin Walker and the probation service’s Mo Sibert expressed scepticism that the amount he had claimed to have drunk would have resulted in such a high reading the following day.

The court heard he was of previous good character and Ms Sibert said: “He is mortified, he is ashamed of what he has done, he doesn’t want to be here and doesn’t want to trouble the court again.”

Banning him from the roads for two-years, Judge Walker told McKinley: “With that amount of alcohol in your bloodstream you face the possibility, that I am sure you now realise, that you could have been responsible for some grave results to other people either by destroying lives, ruining lives, or both.”

McKinley, who had worked as a HGV driver for 24-years, was also told to pay £910 in fines and court charges.