THE toughening up of drink-drive laws in the Balearics has resulted in the first case of an Island resident being convicted.
The 55-year-old guilty party was stopped at a police checkpoint on 6th December and found to have an unacceptably high level of alcohol in his blood. The sentence of the confiscation of his driving license for two-and-a-half years which was passed on him by the Court was the first in the Balearics since the Penal Code had been officially tightened on 1st December.
The incident serves as a wake-up call for all drivers on the Island. Not only is it a question of the withdrawal of the license but if the guilty party wishes to drive again when the sentence time has passed, he will need to return to driving school and take examinations in theory as much as in practice. He will also be obliged to carry out 61 days of community work and pay six euros a day in fines for a period of nine months. The sentencing judge bore in mind the fact that the same man had already been penalised in June for a similar offence. According to Traffic Police, the guilty party had been stopped at a roundabout on the Manacor bypass driving a luxury Jaguar car but alcohol tests and his psychophysical condition proved that he was well above the permitted limit. During the court hearing, he said that he had become the victim of ill luck since the new legislation had only been in place for five days when he was stopped.