A DRINK-driver with “contempt” for court orders has been banned from the road for an extra nine months.

Gareth Chapman, aged 27, admitted driving in Watergate Drive, Farnworth, on July 4 while he was disqualified.

Chapman was driving to work at 7.50am with a passenger in the car, which he had borrowed, when he was caught by police.

He was banned from driving for two years in December after being caught drinkdriving.

Chapman, of Kirby Avenue, Atherton, also has a previous conviction for another drinkdriving incident.

Bolton Magistrates’ Court heard he was driving to work as a self-employed cleaner when he was stopped.

The court heard Chapman claimed it was the first time he had been driving since being disqualified.

He claimed he had got behind the wheel because he had a backlog of work to complete as his pregnant partner had been in hospital three days before the incident.

District Judge Jonathan Finestein, sentencing, said: “I am not that stupid. You were going to work in a car and you were doing it all of the time and this time you got caught. It irritates me to try to create this sort of sob story.

“People who drink and drive kill people. If you kill yourself that’s your problem, but you put people’s lives at risk. You show complete contempt by driving again.”

He sentenced him to 160 hours of unpaid work, extended his driving ban to be lifted in September, 2014, and ordered him to pay £85 court costs.

Judge Finestein warned Chapman he would be jailed if he tried to “duck and dive” the sentence.