Father’s death leads to drink driving

Sep 26, 2022

Guilty plea: A man has been fined after he was caught driving at almost three times the legal alcohol limit. Photo by Rodney Braithwaite

A driver who was almost three times the legal alcohol limit told a court he had been “drowning his sorrows’’ after his dad was killed two years ago.

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Noel Payne, 33, of Shepparton, pleaded guilty in Shepparton Magistrates’ Court to drink driving.

Prosecutor Leading Senior Constable Anna Hanlon said police spotted Payne driving at 20km/h in a 50km/h zone in Packham St, Shepparton, at 10.38pm on February 5.

Police followed him, and when they stopped him and breath tested him in nearby Grutzner Ave he recorded a blood alcohol concentration of 0.144.

Payne told police at the time he had consumed “two VB longnecks” between 6pm and when he was stopped.

“I didn’t think I was over. It is as simple as that,” Leading Sen Constable Hanlon said Payne told police at the time.

Representing himself in court, Payne said it was the first time he had drank alcohol “in about eight years”.

He said the only reason he was drinking on this occasion was because he was “drowning his sorrows’’ because his father had been killed about two years ago.

Payne was fined $650 and ordered to pay $87.20 in court costs.

He was also disqualified from driving for 14 months, backdated to February 5 when his licence was taken off him on the spot.