Confessions of a drink driver on a ‘rehab’ course
2 May 2009
Banned for a year, James Hughes-Onslow found himself sent to a group discussion class every Friday in which two ladies schooled him in the art of sobriety on the road
I blame Matthew d’Ancona, esteemed editor of this organ, for his over-generous hospitality. It was after one of The Spectator’s pre-Christmas celebrations that I was breathalysed and banned from driving for a year, later reduced to nine months if I underwent counselling. It all started when, as an occasional Spectator scribe since 1974, I received a last-minute invitation to a dinner for readers to meet contributors. It was 6 p.m. and I was in the Evening Standard’s offices in Kensington. The dinner was at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, at 7.15, and I had to get home to Camberwell six miles away to change into a dinner jacket.
As I later told Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court, I was full of remorse and regret about what happened, especially as I have a freedom pass. I was caught out by a bizarre sequence of events. When I got home I found our next-door neighbour, a lady in her mid-fifties, being beaten up by a gang of hoodies on my doorstep. She was trying to ring our bell because there was no one in her house. They were holding a knife to her throat, punching her in the face and kicking her. When they saw me, they ran off and I chased them, accompanied by my son, who had heard the noise. We soon lost them and returned to the house, where we called the police. They came round quickly but I was still hopelessly late for the dinner, so I decided to take my scooter.
When I got to Chelsea hospital, still shaking and sweating, I was offered a large drink, then another one or two. Spectator readers listened sympathetically to my traumatic experiences that evening and suggested another glass of wine. When I left the party at around midnight, the man at the gate said I couldn’t leave the scooter inside the gardens, and there were no legal parking places outside on the Chelsea embankment. The only answer was to ride three miles home. It was at Clapham North that I encountered temporary traffic lights where they were digging up the road. The lights were very slow in changing so I gingerly crept past them with no traffic in either direction. However, a police car was lying in wait.
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David Short
April 30th, 2009 12:01pm Report this commentYour big mistake was creeping through the lights.
Especially at that time of night. There's nothing better coppers like is to nab someone fairly early into their night shift, which starts at 10pm. With luck, they'll be stuck at the police station till about 4am, leaving only two more hours on the job before going home.
You can be sure they won't nick you then, because they might be stuck at the police station beyond their shift.
We must all do what we can to make life much easier for our comfort-conscious police 'service'.
David Short
April 30th, 2009 1:49pm Report this commentPS. And the prospect of nicking a respectable older gentleman in a dinner jacket on a scooter late at night must have just been tooooo tempting for today's non-deferential police officers.
Daniel
April 30th, 2009 9:03pm Report this commentHi James! Fyi, drink driving is a serious criminal offense. It puts your life at risk and it puts the lives of everyone else using the roads at risk, too. The police were quite right to arrest and charge you: please spare us the "why aren't they out catching real criminals" complaints.
As for the drink driving classes, they sound like they were sensible and well-run; you could have got something positive from them. Instead you chose to treat this opportunity to mitigate your offense as a chance to poke fun at the two women running the course, who were sincerely trying to help you.
Still, I'm sure the fee for writing this article will contribute towards paying off your drink-driving fine, so it's served some sort of useful purpose. Cheers!
Matt
May 1st, 2009 9:27am Report this commentWell it sounds like you had a lot of fun, and got 3 months off your ban. That's great, you can be riding/driving through red lights whilst intoxicated again that bit quicker and putting other people's lives at risk.
You've had a cheap laugh at the expense of people who were trying to help you, your response - going to the pub afterwards makes me think you didn't take this at all seriously, probably just a minor inconvenience was it. I've never read any of your work, and I'm not minded to read any in the future. Shame on you.
Michael Birbeck
May 1st, 2009 10:13am Report this commentWhile not dismissing the serousness of drink driving, I must admit I had a good laugh as a result of reading your article. As for the po-faced commentators clucking around here, I suggest that they look up the meaning of humour and its ability to inform and educate. I do not discern any intent to dicredit the two ladies involved here but am apt to enjoy the ironies that life throws our way.
David Short
May 1st, 2009 2:45pm Report this comment" Had I not heard of motorcyclists mounting the pavement and killing pedestrians and small children in pushchairs?"
Not in the early hours of the morning, I haven't.
I reckon I'd have opted to wait 12 more weeks to get my license back rather than listen to these silly women.
How much closer we seem to get to thought control and Big Brother in our everyday affairs in the UK.
Very sad.
Daniel
May 2nd, 2009 7:50am Report this commentYou're quite right David. Drink driving is perfectly safe when carried out in the early hours of the morning. How silly of me to think differently!
Fascist state, Nu Liebour, 1984 all over again etc etc etc.
David Short
May 2nd, 2009 10:04pm Report this commentDaniel, you make yourself sound silly. You need no help from me.
I am a cyclist in London. I am more afraid of the everyday careless 'sober' driver than this senior chap on a scooter at one in the morning.
Frank
May 2nd, 2009 10:20pm Report this commentTotalitarian - and I'm a non-driver by choice.
Fergus Pickering
May 3rd, 2009 2:08pm Report this commentI was going to say that you acted like a bit of a prat but some of these postings made me change my mind. Good on you, sport. There is nobody, nobody with teenage daughters who hasn't at an unexpected summons, driven out to pick them up from unsalubrious spots in the middle of the night. And unless we are to remain for ever sober (Good God!) sometimes we will be over the limit. And I didn't think your laughs were cheap. They were quite good laughs. Were you a prefect at public school? I don't know, I just wondered.
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