A TWO-TIME drink-driver was branded a "complete lethal menace" as he was banned from the roads for five years.

Christopher Hall was more than three times over the legal alcohol limit when he was behind the wheel of a friend's Audi.

The 25-year-old trainee accountant and charity volunteer sped through a housing estate at 4am, Teesside Crown Court heard.

The court was told that Hall, from Thornaby, near Stockton, was disqualified from driving for 17 months for excess alcohol.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, told him he was "a high danger" to other road-users but said: "Thankfully, nobody was about."

Rachel Dyson, mitigating, said Hall had made "a foolish decision" but was usually "a decent young man, who works hard".

She said he was valued by his employers, and also volunteers for a charity which builds football schools in developing countries.

Judge Bourne-Arton told him: "You carried out an act of supreme danger when you got in that car.

"It is said you are a decent young man when not in drink, but when you are in drink, and get into a car, you are a lethal menace."

Hall, of York Apartments, Thornaby, admitted dangerous driving and driving with excess alcohol in Ingleby Barwick, Stockton, on May 11.

He was given a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, and 120 hours of unpaid work for the community.

The judge also ordered him to pay £1,200 costs, a £500 fine, and imposed a three-month curfew between 9pm and 7am.

Prosecutor Jenny Haigh told the court that Hall's breath-test showed 114 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The limit is 35mcgs.