A DRINK-driving chef drove onto the middle of a roundabout after getting behind the wheel while four times above the legal alcohol limit, a court heard.

Adam Faulkner was spotted by a member of the public “swerving all over the road” as he drove his Lexus along the M50 and then the A40 near Ross-on- Wye on the evening of April 17.

He stopped only when one of his tyres had a blow out.

Prosecutor Leslie Ashton said someone noticed Faulkner’s car reversing off the grass part of a roundabout on the A40.

“They contacted the police saying his vehicle was swerving all over the place,” said Miss Ashton. “He wasn’t travelling in a straight line.”

A breath test showed Faulkner, who is 40 and from Park Street, Abergavenny, had 142 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, the legal limit being 35 microgrammes.

He admitted a charge of driving with an alcohol level above the legal limit.

Edmund Middleton, defending, said Faulkner works as a chef at a hotel in Ross-on-Wye.

He told the court his dad had died earlierin the month. “He sought comfort in alcohol and then tried to drive home,” said Mr Middleton. “It is a high reading from an otherwise normal, sensible and decent man.”

He was given a three-year driving ban, six-month community order, ordered to pay £135 costs and £85 victim surcharge.