A man convicted of drink driving escaped a motoring ban after he told a court he had feared his aunt's car might blow up.

Michael Carter, 23, of Bromley Grove, Exley Head, Keighley, had pleaded guilty to the offence at a previous hearing.

But when he appeared before Bingley magistrates yesterday he said he had only moved his aunt's car within the car park at the Three Horses pub in Fell Lane, Keighley, because he feared it could blow up after his cousin had crashed it into a parked van, leaving it leaking fluids.

Carter told magistrates he and his cousin, Robert Carter, 17, had driven to the pub on the evening of May 15, intending to leave the vehicle in the car park overnight and collect it the next morning.

The self-employed motor mechanic said that during the evening his cousin had asked for the car keys so he could get something from the vehicle and he had not asked for them back.

His cousin had later left the pub just before him and when he got outside he heard a crash and saw the car rolling backwards into the car park, having hit a van parked nearby in Fell Lane.

He said: "It was leaking fluids and there was quite a bit of smoke about - it turned out not to be fuel but it could have been. There were quite a few people around and if it had stayed where it was and gone up it would have taken other cars and people with it.''

After deliberating for almost an hour the chairman of the bench, Ann Norton, told Carter they accepted there were special reasons for not disqualifying him, including the fact the vehicle had only been moved a short distance. But Carter was fined £200 for the drink- driving offence. The court also fined him £185 with £50 costs after finding him guilty of having no insurance and no test certificate for the car.

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