Drink-drive pensioner is banned from road

n A PENSIONER has been banned from the road after pleading guilty for drink driving.

Alfred Maginn, aged 70, of Westhoughton, was caught swerving across the lane on the M61 near Chequerbent on March 4.

Police stopped Maginn, of Winslow Road, as he swerved from the slow lane across to the hard shoulder and found him to be almost twice over the limit with 66 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath.

The former engineer admitted the offence at Bolton Magistrates Court yesterday.

Adam Whittaker, defending, told the court that Mr Maginn had been married for 45 years when his wife died due to sudden illness.

Mr Whittaker said the pensioner had found it increasingly difficult to cope and had started to drink more.

He added: “He made an effort to stop drinking but he started to spend more and more time in the car visiting places he used to go to with his wife. He also bought himself a dog to walk around these places.”

On the day of the offence, Mr Maginn had been over to his former work place in Rochdale to show his former colleagues his dog. When he arrived, he found out one of his old colleagues had been made redundant, so he drove over to Bury to visit him.

They went to the pub where he had at least two drinks and was stopped near Junction 5 on the M61 when he swerved across the road.

Mr Whittaker added: “When he drove home he was told he was actually driving too slow. He is very upset, ashamed and disappointed in himself. He has decided he will not drive again.”

Mr Maginn was banned from driving for 17 months and fined £220.

Comments(6)

hotandspicy says...
12:21pm Thu 14 Mar 13

i'm surprised the headline didn't read 'former royal bolton hospital patient in drink - drive ban' the bolton news is putting the hospital across the front pages for everything else almost every day at the moment

macauley says...
12:53pm Thu 14 Mar 13

the rbh only gets the bad press from the bolton news because of its poor standard of care.

cliff4treasurer says...
1:23pm Thu 14 Mar 13

I don't see whats wrong with the standard of care of the Bolton News? They always support and care about the ruling labour group here in Beirut err sorry Bolton.

chris25 says...
2:58pm Thu 14 Mar 13

macauley wrote:
the rbh only gets the bad press from the bolton news because of its poor standard of care.
maybe its because people dont bother to report the good experiences and care that they have had while in hospital so we dont get to hear from all the satisfied patients

Wolfie190 says...
11:05pm Thu 14 Mar 13

Yep Chris25 most of the nurses are over worked angels.

_A5HA11_ says...
8:24am Fri 15 Mar 13

it was only last night when this old guy walked from the bridge pub in horwich stright out in front of me across the road ( i say walk more stagger) I had to slame on the brakes or else i would of hit him, i thought he's drunk he's old and its dark he porbs didnt see me or something (even though i had my head lights on) in thinking this and keeping my clam after nearly hitting someone he gets into a park car which was park in the bus stop aera and without indacating nealry side swaps me as he pulls out and drives off in to horwich, just hope he didnt hit anyone

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