A HEAVY drinker admitted causing more than £1,400 worth of damage to a coach - even though he could not remember doing it.

Scarborough magistrates heard that, at the time, the 26-year-old Darlington man was drinking up to one-and-a-half bottles of vodka a day.

Ian Cullen, of Helmsley Moor Way, Firth Moor, admitted damaging the 51-seat coach, which had come from Loughborough, at the end of October.

Rosie McIlroy, prosecuting, said the driver returned to the coach the next morning and found the windscreen had a large crack, the passenger door was scratched, and there was blood on the inside of a window.

The blood was traced, using DNA samples, back to Cullen.

Franklyn Garvey, mitigating, said Cullen had been drinking heavily and could not recall the incident, but pleaded guilty on the basis that the blood matched his DNA sample.

He had parted company with his girlfriend last year and was sleeping rough at the time, but during a period in prison he had sought help, and was back with his girlfriend and two children.

Magistrates gave Cullen a conditional discharge for 12 months, and ordered him to pay £500 compensation to the coach company, and £55 costs.