Wheels Fall Off Rally Entrepreneur's Motorsport Plans After Drink-Drive Conviction

A motor-sport entrepreneur – organising a Europe-wide rally – was caught driving while over three times the drinks limit during a boozy night out in London's West End.

University graduate Aaron Lloyd-Goodwin, 23, of Hurdles Way, Duxford, Cambridgeshire will have his driving and travelling curtailed after he was banned and ordered to stay indoors for two months with an electronically-tagged night time curfew.

He pleaded guilty at Hammersmith Magistrates Court today to driving his red VW Golf with excess alcohol in his breath in Talgarth Road, West Kensington on March 30.

The court heard it was 4am when a concerned member of the public called the police, suspecting Lloyd-Goodwin was drunk when he pulled his recently-damaged car into a BP petrol station.

The defendant failed a roadside breath-test and at the police station gave a reading of 117 microgrammes of alcohol – the legal limit is 35.

Lloyd-Goodwin is currently organising the GrandTour 2014 and has previously been employed by car rally companies.

“He is someone that needs his licence,” said Mr. Tim Williamson, defending. “He had been out in London for the night and drove to the West End and had made arrangements to stay with a friend.

“Unfortunately the friend, who only has a two-seater and was with his brother, had no space in his car for Mr. Lloyd-Goodwin.

“He arranged another lift, but when returning to his car just to collect his jacket noticed that someone had crashed into his vehicle.

“He was shocked and devastated and thrown into a panic and accepts it was the wrong thing to do to drive. He made the mistake to drive and get some fuel.

“This was a social evening with friends, he does not have any issues with drugs or alcohol,” added the lawyer after District Judge Peter Greenfield asked if his client had a drink problem.

“He made a terrible mistake that he regrets.

“He does an awful lot of driving, visiting investors in the UK and in Europe, meeting officials and setting up the route.

“Clearly the curfew will have a punitive effect on his work and his travelling. He's pretty much on the road everyday and in continental Europe.”

District Judge Greenfield sentenced Lloyd-Goodwin to a two-month 8pm-6am home curfew, disqualified him from driving for twenty-six months and ordered him to pay £85 costs and a £60 victim surcharge.

“It's the danger to himself and the public, driving with that amount of alcohol,” announced the judge. “His behaviour must have caused some concern for the member of the public to report it.

“That is a high reading and that is always a concern to the court.

“He's sailing close to a custodial sentence. There has to be a punitive element to this, it's such a high reading and it is a big fall from grace.”

He told first-time offender Lloyd-Goodwin: “We all know tragedies happen with this amount of alcohol. You are pretty obviously a man of great potential and I do not want to curtail that for too long.”