'No court will find me guilty' was businessman's boast (From Ilkley Gazette)

'No court will find me guilty' was businessman's boast

8:01am Monday 21st June 2010

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A businessman who told police, "no court in the land will find me guilty", has been sentenced for driving while over the legal alcohol limit.

Neil Medley, 48, of Salts Mill Road, Shipley, was found by police slumped against the wheel of a Dodge pick-up truck after it was seen being driven in what prosecutor Felicity Davies described as an, "erratic and worrying" manner.

Bradford Crown Court heard on Friday that Medley, who runs an insolvency company, had been drinking in a pub on November 24 last year, before seizing the truck from a man who had gone bankrupt.

He had driven 100 metres down an unadopted road, in Apperley Bridge, which Medley said he believed was private, before stopping to wait for someone else to collect the truck.

He told police he did not believe he could be found guilty, even though he was clearly drunk.

While on bail for that offence, on December 30, he drove his Porsche Carrera while over the limit in Skipton, failing to give way to a police car at a roundabout.

The court was told he had prevaricated at the police station, claiming to be afraid of needles.

It was three-and-a-half hours before a blood-alcohol reading could be taken and he was still one-and-a-half times over the limit.

Both cases had been committed to Bradford Crown Court from Magistrates' Courts.

In 2007, Medley was convicted of criminal damage after burning his former wife's expensive underwear at their Ilkley home.

He had also broken a non-molestation order by throwing eggs at her and pestering his estranged children in 2008.

Recorder Paul Reid said: "You are 48 years of age and your first conviction was in 2003.

"Since then you have appeared before the court on a number of occasions for offences which seem to me to be entirely drink-related."

Sentencing Medley to a community order with 200 hours unpaid work, a three-year driving ban and ordering him to pay £340 costs, Recorder Reid said: "It is clear you did your very best, in an utterly cynical manner, to avoid a sample being taken from you for as long as you possibly could."

The court heard Medley had pleaded guilty to both offences, and had stopped drinking alcohol.

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