A DARWEN man has been jailed for four months after being spotted reversing a car 30 yards along his street.

Blackburn magistrates heard that Peter William Cork was banned from driving when police saw him completing the manoeuvre.

And when the officers returned after dealing with another incident they found Cork standing by the car drinking from a bottle of wine.

Cork, of Dove Lane, pleaded guilty to driving while disqualified, with excess alcohol and without insurance. He was jailed for four months and banned for three years.

The court heard that Cork initially gave a reading of 101 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath against the legal limit of 35 microgrammes but, because he had been drinking between the officers seeing him behind the wheel and the time of the breathalyser being administered, a calculation had been made which put his level at 61.

Neil Standage, prosecuting, said Cork had numerous previous convictions for disqualified driving and driving with excess alcohol.

Richard Prew, defending, said his client could not get away from the fact that he had a horrendous record for like offences but urged the magistrates to consider the positive suggestions put forward in a pre-sentence report.

He said the offence itself had been one of sheer madness. Cork had done some work on the car involved and was selling it. A man had taken it for a test drive and returned the keys.

"When my client went to see where the car was it was further down the road and it was parked skew-whiff across the road," said Mr Prew.

"He took it upon himself to reverse it the 30 yards to the front of his house and that was the totality of his driving."