A DRINK-DRIVER from Darlington has been banned from the roads for two years.

Stephen Rowley was also fined £300 for driving after consuming an excessive amount of alcohol and a further £100 after pleading guilty to having no insurance.

The 41-year-old appeared at Darlington Magistrates' Court yesterday.

The court heard that Rowley had been in London on March 23 and admitted to drinking heavily.

He caught the train back to Darlington that evening and arranged for a lift from the station to home.

Later that night, he went to a pub in Neasham Road with his wife, where he had a couple of drinks.

The court was told it was while he was in the pub that he realised his son had left his car in the car park and decided to drive it home for him.

It was during this one-mile journey that he was seen driving erratically by the police and they stopped him.

A roadside breath test was positive and he was taken to the police station, where a blood sample was taken.

The reading was 217 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood; the legal limit is 80 milligrammes.

Zoe Passfield, mitigating, said: "Although my client admits he had a couple of drinks in the pub that night, he did not think he was over the limit.

"He had been drinking excessively much earlier in the day and did not take into account this could still be in his system."

Rowley has volunteered to complete a drink-driving rehabilitation course which will mean his two-year disqualification is reduced to six months. He was also ordered to pay £43 court costs.