Many people will be surprised at the relatively light sentence handed to police officer Jatinder Dosanjh for driving while almost three times the limit.

Dosanjh had been warned he could face jail at an earlier hearing after the court was told he had crashed his car into a wall, left the scene, and then lied about his name and profession.

And it was revealed yesterday that this was his second conviction for drink-driving in nine years.

The latest offence happened when he was a serving police officer, and he should know more than anybody the possible implications of driving while under the influence of alcohol.

To then compound the offence by failing to take responsibility for an accident he caused and then trying to lie about it is a huge breach of trust by someone in such a position.

Dosanjh had a responsibility and duty to the public, and he has not only let down himself, his friends, his family and colleagues, but he has also let down the public at large.

Anyone who gets behind a wheel when over the drink-drive limit not only puts themselves at risk, but they put the lives of everyone else on the road around them in danger.

There are no excuses, and as a police officer, he will have known better than most the potential damage that can be wreaked on people’s lives by such behaviour.

As it is, his future as a police officer is likely to be over, but he is fortunate to have escaped a harsher sentence – and even more fortunate that neither he nor, more importantly, anybody else was badly hurt as a result of his reckless actions.