Drink Drive latest b4 press

At the time of going to press a total 56 motorists had so far been charged with drink drive offences after they were arrested this month and some had previous convictions or were driving while still banned for an earlier offence.

Some were arrested after their vehicle was involved in a crash and a motorcyclist was banned from the roads for three years after he sped off to try to avoid police while more than four times the drink-drive limit.

The first arrest was a 33 year old woman, from Upper Beeding, who was stopped and found to be over the limit at 9.30am while on a school run with her children.

One driver was stopped after police spotted an open can of alcohol on the dashboard of his red Audi A6.

A 30-year-old man has been jailed after he was caught drink-driving for the third time in two years.

Arunas Abromavicius was already a banned drink-driver when officers spotted him driving a silver Volkswagen Golf erratically in Hillsborough Road, Bognor Regis, at 2am on 2 December.

Now he has been sent to prison after magistrates were told he had already been convicted of drink-driving in both 2012 and 2013.

Abromavicius was first convicted in June 2012 after he was stopped by police on 8 May that year in an uninsured vehicle while driving drunk and without a licence.

He was disqualified from driving for 17 months but on 17 August 2013 he was caught drink-driving again after being pulled over by police.

When breathalysed officers discovered he was more than three times the drink-drive limit, was driving without insurance, was already a banned drink-driver and was in a car he had taken without the owner’s consent.

When he appeared at Crawley Magistrates’ Court on 3 December, Abromavicius admitted all the charges. He was jailed for 15 weeks, banned from driving for 45 months and ordered to pay a £80 victim surcharge.

People in Sussex can text officers on 65999 with the details of people they suspect of drink or drug driving or visit www.operationcrackdown.co.uk. Operation Dragonfly continues over the New Year period.