Emmerdale actor Peter Amory, who plays wheelchair-bound Chris Tate in the Yorkshire Television soap, is facing a prison sentence.

He appeared in court yesterday following a crash in his four-wheel drive vehicle in which his 11-year-old son was a passenger.

The 36-year-old actor, charged under his real name of Peter Walton, appeared before Harrogate magistrates to plead guilty to failing to provide a breath specimen at the town's police station.

Presiding magistrate David Gravells adjourned the hearing for three weeks and called for reports from the probation service to address all sentencing options, including the six-month maximum jail sentence available to the bench. Walton, who was banned from driving as an interim measure, will return to court on October 3.

Peter Jeffries, prosecuting, said police had been called to a road accident at 9.50pm, on August 26, in the Nidderdale village of Dacre.

They found that Walton's black Land Rover Discovery had collided with several parked vehicles.

Officers went to a neighbouring house where they found Walton, of Westard Barn, Langer Hill Lane, High Birstwith.

He admitted he had been the driver of the Discovery, but was uninjured and had had his 11-year-old son with him at the time.

Mr Jeffries said Walton was clearly under the influence of alcohol.

He gave a positive breath test and was taken to Harrogate police station, where he failed to provide a breath specimen because he could blow only a small amount of breath into the testing machine and it did not record an alcohol level.

Walton was kept in custody, and at 11.15pm a check was made on his alcohol level which was found to be 125 micrograms. The limit is 35.

At 11.25am the next day, the reading was 46.

Walton's solicitor, Geoffrey Rogers, said he wanted to stress that although he failed to provide a specimen initially, within about 25 minutes he had approached the police and asked them to do a sobriety check.