A VAN driver who was caught by police drink-driving blamed his positive alcohol breath test on his cough medicine.

Damien Burton, 31, initially denied any wrongdoing when he was caught driving a highways maintenance van at Friargate in Penrith on December 31 last year, prosecutor John Moran told Carlisle’s Rickergate-based magistrates' court.

A roadside breath test revealed that he had 43mcg of alcohol in 100ml of breath.

The legal alcohol limit is 35mcg.

The defendant, of Parklands Crescent, Penrith, admitted drink-driving, but he contacted the court to say he was not well enough to attend.

Outlining the prosecution, Mr Moran said: “It’s a straightforward case.

“Police stopped his vehicle in Friargate, Penrith. It was a highways maintenance vehicle. This defendant was the driver.

“He smelled of alcohol and said he had consumed one pint of alcohol about two hours earlier.

“There was a positive roadside breath test.

“The defendant said he agreed with the evidence but he raised an issue, saying he’d had cough medicine and he believed this was why he was over the limit.

“He was advised that this didn’t give him an defence unless he obtained expert evidence to support that.

“But he hasn’t been able to and has entered a guilty plea.”

Mr Moran said Burton had previously been convicted of drink-driving in 2014 and given a ban.

That meant that the court was obliged to impose a minimum three-year ban.

The court heard also that the defendant, who was not legally represented, had now lost his job as a result of the case.

Magistrates imposed a three year ban, along with £400 prosecution costs, a £32 victim surcharge and a fine of £162.

There have been several cases in recent years when people prosecuted for drink driving have blamed cough syrup for taking them over the limit.

Alcohol is frequently an ingredient of cough syrup. In 2017, a man from Kent was prosecuted after he drank a glass of wine and used Covonia cough medicine during the day.

Defence lawyer Russell Morling told the court in that case: “He had a glass of wine at lunchtime.

"Though under the limit, he’d been self-medicating with Covonia and subsequently discovered it has alcohol in it.” The medicine contains just under eight per cent alcohol. The man admitted he was drink-driving.