A St George’s man caught while driving over the legal blood-alcohol limit has been banned from the roads for 18 months.

Appearing in Magistrates’ Court last week, Orlando Burch, 35, pleaded guilty to the offence, which occurred in St George’s on June 26.

The Crown accepted his plea and offered no evidence on the alternative charge of driving while impaired.

The court heard that an off-duty police officer had seen Burch driving along St David’s Road, swerving from left to right and into the opposite lane. As he pursued the car, he also observed Burch almost collide with an oncoming vehicle and narrowly avoid hitting the roundabout.

Burch stopped at St David’s Pizza House, where police officers approached him and asked him if he had been drinking. He told the officers: “You guys are saying anything. I’m not drunk.”

Upon taking Burch outside and asking him to identify his car, the officers determined that he was the driver of the car their colleague had been pursuing. They noted that his eyes were red, his speech was slurred and his breath smelled of alcohol.

He was taken to Hamilton Police Station, where a breath test showed that he had 291 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood — more than 3½ times the legal limit of 80mg.

Burch, who has a previous conviction for causing death by dangerous driving dating back to 2005, was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and having excess alcohol in his blood.

Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo handed Burch a $1,200 fine and disqualified him from driving all vehicles for 18 months.

• On occasion The Royal Gazette may decide to not allow comments on what we consider to be a controversial or contentious story. As we are legally liable for any slanderous or defamatory comments made on our website, this move is for our protection as well as that of our readers.