A HEAD chef who crashed his car into a ditch before drinking the equivalent of six double brandies has been cleared of drink driving.
Gordon McNeil, 31, of Clare Close, Mildenhall, denied driving with excess alcohol when he appeared before magistrates at Bury St Edmunds on Monday.
Helen Booth, prosecuting, told the court that a week before Christmas, McNeil crashed his BMW into
a ditch just outside Tuddenham after swerving to avoid a muntjac deer.
After the crash, McNeil phoned the police before heading back to Tuddenham Mill hotel, where he has worked since 2005, to call a recovery service and his insurance company.
The court later heard that as he made these calls, McNeil, who had been on his way to a staff fancy dress party dressed as an officer from the film Top Gun, took several swigs of brandy from a bottle in the hotel's kitchen.
He then returned to the crash scene where he was arrested after failing a road side breath test. The lowest reading was 54 microgrammes in 100 millilitres of breath – the legal limit is 35 microgrammes.
McNeil told officers that he had consumed alcohol after the crash and said he would not have driven the car if he had been over the limit as it would have cost him his job.
"I was shaken and upset," he told the hearing. "I was nervous and I thought that the brandy would calm me down.
"I phoned the police as I thought it was my responsibility and I didn't know what else to do.
"I made it clear to the officer that after the accident I had been back to the hotel to drink the brandy."
The court heard that earlier in the day, McNeil had drunk a glass of wine after finishing his shift.
But forensic expert Roger Blackmore said this would have had no effect on the reading and that it was likely that the drink of brandy after the crash had put him over the drink-drive limit.
Ann Gray, defending, said: "The first thing he did was to call the police to draw attention to the fact that the car had been in an accident.
"He took some swigs of brandy at the hotel but somebody in his situation would not draw attention to himself in this way if he had been drinking beforehand.
"He is very aware of what drink driving can do.
"This is not a case of someone trying to pretend that he drunk after the crash.
"He had no intention of driving again that night."
