Drink driver claimed he was using parked car as a hut

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A Buller man found drunk and asleep in his badly parked car with his seatbelt still on and the engine running says he was merely using the vehicle as a hut.

Ross Forsyth, 53, of Carters Beach, whom police accused of drink-driving, says he deliberately parked up on the side of the road so he could drink himself to sleep and forget about life for the night.

The engine had been running to keep the car warm, he told Westport District Court yesterday.

His lawyer, Doug Taffs, said Forsyth wasn't driving and wasn't on the road.

Essentially he had been using his vehicle as a hut rather than a means of transport, Mr Taffs said.

But police Constable Georgie Were told the court Forsyth had been parked at an angle with the back of the vehicle on the road and the front against a fence.

The car had still been in gear and Forsyth was wearing his seatbelt.

He was incoherent when she woke him.

His alcohol breath reading had been 1255mcg - more than three times the legal limit.

Judge Jane Farish told Forsyth he was lucky the officer found him when she did as he could easily have died from drinking vodka.

She disqualified him from driving for 12 months and indefinitely, and sentenced him to 80 hours community work.