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Jailed: Drunk Polish lorry driver caught driving the wrong way down major Black Country road

A drunk Polish lorry driver caught driving the wrong way down the Black Country Route has been jailed and banned from the road for three years.

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Tomasz Kruchowski, aged 36, was spotted pulling out of a side road near The Keyway, in Willenhall, then down the 'no entry' lane by police officers on patrol along the A454 section of the route in his 40-ton articulated lorry.

Miss Val Hart, prosecuting, told Walsall Magistrates Court yesterday that the driver was more than three times the drink drive limit when he was arrested in the early hours on Monday.

"At about 2.15am they were travelling eastbound along the Black Country Route travelling from Willenhall to Wolverhampton. They saw an HGV articulated lorry emerge the wrong way from a no entry side road and drive onto the route. It was travelling westbound on the eastbound carriageway heading towards oncoming traffic. Officers were clearly perturbed by what they could see. The driver was causing potential risk to himself and others by being on the wrong side of the road. Officers then attempted to stop the vehicle risking their own safety and set about warning other motorists of the danger.

The vehicle was a large trailer and tractor unit and fully laden. It has a mass allowance of 40 tons.

"Having approached the driver it was clear that he had been drinking alcohol, his eyes were glazed and red, he was unsteady on his feet and smelt strongly of intoxicants. He was arrested for driving whilst unfit. The Black Country Route was closed to other vehicles and the lorry was driven at a slow speed along the carriageway as it was too long to be turned around," Miss Hart told the court.

Speaking through an interpreter Kruchowski said he lived in Poland.

He admitted one offence of driving with excess alcohol on November 24.

He gave a reading of 118 microgrammes in a 100 millilitres of breath after his arrest. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes.

Mr Ravi Dev, defending, said Kruchowski would most certainly lose his job if he was sent to prison.

"My client would say that he is very sorry for what he has done. He pleads guilty at the earliest opportunity. He has no excuse for his manner of driving or what happened," Mr Dev added.

He said the driver lived with his mother and had been driving to the UK for four years.

Judge Mr Michael Morris told the defendant he would not give him a suspended sentence.

He jailed him for eight weeks of the offence and must serve half before he is released. He also banned Kruchowski from driving on any UK road for three years.

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