Former footballer handed suspended sentence

A former premiership footballer has avoided going to jail after he was found driving while more than three and a half times over the limit.

Richard William Holden of Magher Drine in Peel appeared before magistrates at Douglas Courthouse.

The 57-year-old previously admitted drink-driving on October 12 on Main Road in Sulby.

Prosecutor Roger Kane told the court police spotted Holden just after 9.30pm on Lezayre Road and noticed he was turning his lights off and on and accelerating randomly.

They stopped his Vauxhall Astra, and he failed a roadside breath test – telling police he’d had three pints an hour earlier.

At police headquarters, testing equipment gave a result of 131, where the legal limit is 35.

Magistrates told him such a high reading meant immediate custody had been an option, but after hearing he had longstanding alcohol problems they handed him a three-month jail term suspended for two years.

He was also banned from driving for five years and ordered to pay costs of £125.