A FATHER was sentenced to six weeks in prison, suspended, after he was found slumped behind the wheel of a car nearly four times over the drink-driving limit while he was supposed to be looking after his children.

Peter Rae, aged 46, from Crosby Road, Bolton, registered 150 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath when he was arrested by police after being found in the vehicle in Mornington Road.

One of his children, who were with him, had alerted a member of the public after calling for help.

Rae pleaded guilty to being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle and also drunk in charge of a child under the age of seven.

He was handed the suspended prison sentence at Bolton Magistrates’ Court and also banned from driving for 18 months, which will be added to another driving ban he is currently serving, and indeed was serving when he committed the crime.

Rae was also ordered to pay a £200 fine — £85 in court costs and a £115 victim surcharge — and engage in 20 days rehabilitation.

Chairman of the bench, Stuart Wilson, said the crime warranted a custodial sentence because of the serious nature of being found with such a high level of alcohol in his body.

Rae, who is estranged from his family, had been babysitting his and his wife’s two children — aged 10 and six — at their mother’s house on August 26.

Rae, representing himself in court, said he drank four pints of strong cider and possibly some vodka that night and maintained that he could not remember what happened the next morning.

He admitted that "drinking is an issue for me".

Rae’s estranged wife Deana Rae said she arrived home on the evening of August 26 to find her husband asleep and the children in bed.

When she woke up the next day her Renault Clio was gone along with Rae and the two children.

Rae was found drunk in the vehicle in Mornington Road later that morning. He said the alcohol in his system must have been from the previous night and that he did not remember any events from the morning of August 27 before being arrested.

There was no evidence presented in court that Rae had driven the car that morning or that the car’s engine was running.