We all know what it feels like to have a great drive after an argument. It feels liberating, freeing even, right?
But is it something you should be doing while drunk... without a license... AND whilst being legally blind? Well, that's a situation that England recently had to deal with. As reported by the BBC, 50-year-old Anthony Hall had had a breakdown before setting off in his partner's Vauxhall.
The courts heard that Hall had consumed around four bottles of wine with his partner before suffering a "breakdown". The 50-year-old, who had become blind around two years before this incident, had decided to set off from his home in Huddersfield.
He isn't totally blind, mind you - and that's how he managed to navigate himself over 150 miles north. Despite not holding a license himself, he used the lights of HGV trucks to guide himself northbound.
He later explained to police that his intention was to escape "his home, his relationship and his finances". In order to do this, his ill-fated plan was to go to Scotland.
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The incident happened on the 29th June - police had been tipped off about a man driving on a major highway and swerving. When they pulled him over, they observed he was blind, and also had alcohol on his breath.
He was registered as being 15 micrograms above the alcohol limit for driving in England.
His lawyer, Adele Graham, made the case in court that Hall had had a breakdown and was not mentally stable at the time of the crime. "This was an individual in crisis making a poor decision while in crisis," she explained.
And Hall ended up avoiding jail. The presiding magistrate over the case, Tracey McErlain-Burns, said that Hall was of good character and had been plagued with some "difficult personal circumstances".
He ended up being handed a suspended sentence - 36 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months. This means that he will only be taken into prison if he commits another offence within the stated 18 month time period. He was also ordered to abstain from alcohol.
