A DRINK-DRIVER was found slumped at the wheel of his car in the middle of a busy one-way system, a court heard on September 2.

Shocked witnesses spotted boozed-up Leonard Stroud stopped in the centre of a three-lane highway in Poole at shortly after 6.30pm on July 30.

Police called to the scene discovered the 40-year-old unconscious at the wheel of his Seat Toledo on West Street on the approach to the lifting bridge.

Bournemouth magistrates heard officers had to pinch Stroud on his ear to try to rouse him from his drunken stupor. When he finally came round, he was unsteady on his feet and disorientated, the court was told, and had to be taken to Poole Hospital to sober up.

He later told police he had been drinking pints of lager in Poole Labour Club and couldn't remember driving his car.

Defence solicitor Jonathan Morrissey said the former long-distance lorry driver from Freshwater Drive in Poole lost his job last year after being banned from the road following an earlier drink-driving conviction.

He also had a conviction for driving while disqualified, and had been unable to find any work whatsoever, said Mr Morrissey.

Magistrates at Bournemouth imposed a four-month community order on Stroud, who admitted drink-driving, with a curfew requiring him to stay indoors between the hours of 7pm and 7am, and an electronic tag to enforce the curfew.

He was also disqualified from driving for three years, and was ordered to pay court costs of £43.

First published: September 3, 2005