A Peel man has been fined £750 and banned from driving for one year for drink-driving.

Nicholas Stephen Kelly, aged 58, of Margher Drive, failed a breathalyser test with a reading of 48 - the legal limit is 35 - when he was stopped by police in Union Mills on December 30.

Prosecuting advocate James Robinson told the court how, after acting on information received, police stopped Kelly at 8.50pm while he was driving a Ford Fiesta.

He was asked if he had been drinking and said he had consumed ’two or three’ drinks.

After failing the roadside breathalyser test he was taken to police headquarters where he failed a further test with the 48 reading.

Defence advocate Paul Glover said that his client had no previous convictions and said that it was a relatively low reading.

’Mr Kelly has held a clean driving licence for just over 40 years. This is his first brush with the law.’

Mr Glover went on to ask for the ban to be kept to the minimum as he said Kelly worked in Castletown but lived in Peel.

Magistrates ordered that he pay £125 prosecution costs and also retake his test at the end of the ban.