Repeat drink-driver loses licence
OFFICERS could smell liquor on his breath, so when Russell Verne Allan failed to provide a roadside breath test and a specimen back at the police station, his licence was suspended automatically, Gympie Magistrates Court heard.
Allan told the court he had a problem with blowing into the breathalyser because of a lung condition caused by smoking and by inhaling cement dust in more than 20 years of working as a concretor.
Representing himself, Allan was upset with the way police handled the situation because on the day his licence was suspended he lost his job.
“When I asked officers about my job, they said go and apply for the dole,” he told Gympie Magistrate Maxine Baldwin who reminded him his traffic history had a number of drink-drives on it since 1995.
Because Allan, of Aquitania Court, Cooloola Cove, failed to provide a breath specimen, he received the maximum penalty for drink driving and was ordered to do 90 hours of community service and lost his licence for 20 months.
