POLICE who found a car smashed into a lamp post also found the driver - still nearly twice the limit seven hours after the crash.

Antony Sunter, 29, was banned for 16 months and told to pay £255 in costs and fines, and Burnley magistrates heard how he was already £800 worse off.

He had written off his £400 car and the local council had sent him a bill for £400 for the lamp post.

Sunter, of Thorn Grove, Colne, admitted driving with excess alcohol, failing to stop, damaging the lamp post in the accident and no insurance.

Andy Robinson, prosecuting, said police discovered the car at 6am, with a damaged wing mirror and a wheel sticking out at right angles to the vehicle. A lamp post was partly sticking out from the front end of the car.

After inquiries, officers went to Sunter's home and when they arrived at 12.50pm, the father-of-three was in bed.

He appeared, bleary-eyed and smelling strongly of drink.

Sunter was arrested and taken to the police station, and a breath test showed 61 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath - the legal limit is 35.

He told officers he could remember nothing about what had happened. He could not recall driving, crashing the car or even getting home.

Andrew Church-Taylor, defending, said Sunter had gone to a pub and parked his car as he was going to a wedding celebration and had no intention of driving.

He did not moderate his alcohol intake because of that.

He went to the party and it may well be that somebody spiked his drink or that the accident had caused some memory loss because he could remember little of the events of that night.

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