ROAD safety campaigners have condemned a court's decision not to jail or fine a drunken North-East businessman who drove on the wrong side of a motorway for 16 miles.

Philip McAteer, 33, of West View Farm, Cockfield, County Durham, did not see a police patrol car following him for 12 miles with its lights flashing as he drove south on the northbound carriageway of the A1 and A1(M) in North Yorkshire shortly after 3am on May 10.

The horse dealer was banned for 12 months and given a community service order when he appeared before Harrogate magistrates for sentencing.

He was also ordered to pay £80 towards the cost of bringing the case.

His lawyer, Richard Reed, told the court his client had been preoccupied with problems in his private life and had been only slightly over the limit when he was eventually stopped near Knaresborough.

McAteer had admitted dangerous driving, drink driving and failing to answer bail at a hearing on August 6.

A breath test had shown he had drunk one-and-a-half times the legal alcohol limit, a reading of 53 microgrammes of alcohol ag-ainst the legal limit of 35.

Clocking up speeds of up to 70mph in his Land Rover Freelander 4x4, he had alarmed other motorists, who alerted police by phone, the court heard.

McAteer was first seen on the wrong carriageway near Thirsk when an HGV driver saw two headlights coming towards him.

Four miles further south, another driver tried to overtake the vehicle in front to be confronted by the Freelander doing 40-50mph.

A clip from a video filmed by a patrol car following McAteer showed ten cars and six HGVs passing him on the inside as he drove in the outside lane.

A spokeswoman for road safety charity Brake condemned the sentence.

She said: "We are appalled. A conviction for dangerous driving carries a sentence of up to two years in prison and an unlimited fine, but this driver has escaped without paying a penny.

"It sends completely the wrong message to drink-drivers that they can continue to get away with it until they kill or injure someone."