A SEABROOK drink-driver’s car crashed into parked vehicles, two fences and a house “like a dodgem car”, narrowly avoiding killing a man, a court has heard.
Anthony Tennyson, 62, was almost four times over the legal limit when he veered off the bitumen earlier this year while driving through a quiet Laverton street.
Police said that instead of applying the brakes as he drove through the intersection of Thomas and Armstrong streets in Laverton, he hit the accelerator.
Last Wednesday, Werribee Magistrates Court heard Tennyson ploughed through the steel fence of a residential house and into a verandah, causing part of the paving to break.
The front of his car narrowly missed a man sitting on the verandah, police told the court.
Police escorted Tennyson to Williamstown station for questioning, where he admitted to drinking six stubbies of beer between midday and 6.45pm. He returned a blood-alcohol reading of .189.
Defence lawyer Brett O’Sullivan said Tennyson had been drinking beer at a friend’s house earlier in the day before making a “foolish” decision to drive home.
He was now undergoing voluntary therapy at a Werribee-based alcohol and drug treatment service, Mr O’Sullivan said.
Magistrate John Bentley described the ricocheting smashes as being like “dodgem car”. “He was very, very lucky not to have killed himself or someone else,” he said.
Mr Bentley suspended Tennyson’s licence for two years, and imposed another three months for careless driving.
He was also fined $850.
