A man who was driving with more than four times the legal limit of alcohol in his blood was banned from the roads for 18 months yesterday.

Kyle Rogers, 36, was also fined $1,000 by senior magistrate Juan Wolffe.

The court heard that police were directing traffic from a collision on Harbour Road in Paget when they stopped a car being driven by Rogers and asked him to turn around.

He refused and pulled to the side of the road and told police officers he would wait until the road was clear. Rogers’s breath smelled of alcohol and he was unsteady on his feet.

He was taken to the Hamilton Police Station where he gave a reading of 380 mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood, exceeding the legal limit of 80 mg alcohol more than four times. He refused to provide a second sample.

Rogers, who said it was a terrible mistake trying to get his friends home after a function at his home, apologised to the court. The court also heard it was his first offence.