A Tenby Beer Festival goer who drove around the roundabout the wrong way after drinking eight pints at the event has been handed a 15 month driving disqualification.

Twenty-five-year-old Dafydd Jones, of Peniel, Carmarthen, who admitted the drink-driving offence at Haverfordwest Magistrates Court in November, appeared at Swansea Crown Court on Friday (January 3) for sentencing.

He also pleaded guilty to a charge of driving his VW Golf motor vehicle dangerously on the A478.

The court heard how Mr. Jones gave a reading of 79 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath after he’d been arrested = more than twice the limit, following the incident which occurred on November 3 at around 12.15 am, when a police officer on stationary patrol observations in their vehicle parked at the New Hedges roundabout witnessed Mr. Jones travelling from the Pentlepoir direction.

Due to the drunkenness of the defendant he drove straight through going around the roundabout the wrong way, with the police officer immediately putting on the blue lights of their vehicle and manoeuvring into the roadway, as they had spotted another vehicle coming in the other direction, and feared a head on collision, forcing Mr. Jones’ car onto the side verge.

Mr. Jones told police he had been to the Tenby Beer Festival that night where he had consumed ‘seven or eight’ pints of beer and cider, explaining that his original plan had been to leave his car in the multi-storey car park in the town and get a taxi home with a friend.

It was heard that the defendant had driven around two and a half miles before being stopped by police, and had he completed his journey to his intended destination of Pendine, he would have driven for some 16 miles.

Judge Geraint Walters told Mr. Jones on sentencing him at Crown Court that driving home on the night in question had been a ‘very foolish thing to do’ and probably the worst decision of his life, stating that the consequences of getting behind the wheel ‘could have been very much worse’ for the defendant and for others.

Mr. Jones was banned from driving for 15 months and fined a total of £1,500.