Driving ban after spectacular drink-driving crash

A 20-year-old was convicted of drink driving following a spectacular crash that saw him lose control of his car – which flew into the air, flipping, before smashing through a wall and landing in a Marlow, Buckinghamshire, garden. The Peugot 206’s 7am mid-air roll led to Eliot Nutt being breathalysed by police and he was banned from the roads by magistrates. CCTV footage of Nutt's crash, taken by a neighbour at the scene, shows the "crash, bang, wallop" sequence where an approaching car brakes hard as the driver sees the Peugeot travelling at speed towards him.



Moments later, the Peugeot swerves to the nearside and the bonnet ploughs into a wall. The car then spins around, becomes airborne and flips before smashing through another wall and landing - right way up - in a front garden. Nutt is seen inside, apparently uninjured as emergency services are called to the scene. The motorist appeared before magistrates at Amersham, where he admitted a single charge of driving with excess alcohol. The court heard that Nutt was almost twice the drink-drive limit when the crash happened in Marlow.

He told the magistrates: "I was driving some friends home from Reading who had no way of getting back and I thought I was doing them a favour. I thought I was okay to drive, but clearly I wasn't." The court heard that Nutt had just dropped off his friends and was heading home at 6.50am on October 28. "I had all the heaters on fall blast and I just lost control," he said. Nutt failed a roadside breath test with a reading of 61mg of alcohol per 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35mg.


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When interviewed, he told officers that he had last had a drink at 11pm the previous evening. Nutt, of Douglas Road, Caversham, represented himself during the short hearing. Presiding magistrate Frank Hawkins disqualified Nutt from driving for 18 months but told him that this would be reduced by four months if he completed a drink drivers' rehabilitation course by November next year. He also fined him £110, ordered him to pay costs of £85 pounds and a £20 pounds victim surcharge.