A RECRUITMENT consultant was caught behind the wheel nearly two-and-a-half times over the drink drive limit, having been taken out for drinks by friends after his mum died.

Samuel Bradley, 26, had been drinking with friends at the Slug & Lettuce on The Cross, Worcester, before attempting to drive his Audi TT home.

The 26-year-old was described as an “enterprising young man with a bright future” by his solicitor Paul Stanley, speaking at magistrates’ court on Thursday.

An officer pulled Bradley over on Tudor Way in the early hours of March 30, as part of a routine stop, said prosecutor Lesley Ashton.

“As he was speaking to the officer, the officer could smell alcohol on his breath,” she said.

He had 87 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millitres of breath, when breathalysed at Worcester Police Station, and the court heard how he had no previous convictions.

Mr Stanley said his client’s mum had died in January at the age of 52 and five or six days before his arrest he had buried her ashes.

The solicitor said Bradley’s friends “were trying to cheer him up knowing his personal traumas” – before he opted to drive home.

Mrs Sue Roberts, chair of the bench, addressing the defendant, said: “I will say one word to you: ‘taxi’.

“It is easy to say now. You have landed yourself into a whole load of trouble.”

Mr Stanley said his client, of Sanctuary Close, was not in danger of losing his £19,000-a-year Worcester-based job if he were to lose his licence.

He was ordered to pay a total of £517 and was disqualified from driving for 20 months.