A MOTORIST whose driving was so bad police were alerted before he went into a pub has been banned.

Sarah Tyrer, prosecuting, said officers were waiting as Mihai Horea came back out of The Gate Inn in Malton.

They watched him get into his car and drive down Railway Street towards Norton.

They pulled him over. He was nearly three times the drink drive limit.

Horea, 36, of St Peters Yard, Wold Street, Norton, pleaded guilty to drink driving and was banned from driving for two years.

He was also given a 12-month community order with 120 hours’ unpaid work and ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs and a £90 statutory surcharge at York Magistrates Court.

For him, duty solicitor Alan Meehan said he had come to York from Romania in 2019 and worked at a local factory.

Ms Tyrer said at 11.30pm on January 18, a member of public called police because of the way a man was driving a Honda Jazz.

“They believed the male was drunk,” she said.

The caller said the man had parked the car and gone into the Gate Inn.

Police went to where the car was parked and waited for the driver to return. He turned out to be Horea.

His breath test gave a reading of 99 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35.