An ice cream van driver was arrested nearly four times over the drink-drive limit after eagle-eyed customers tipped off the police. Radoslaw Jaroszek, 45, was serving up ice cream near the Great Yarmouth seafront in Norfolk when punters noticed he seemed a bit worse for wear.
Cops tracked him on CCTV as he navigated his Ford Transit van through the town before pulling him over for a breath test.
Jaroszek appeared at Great Yarmouth Magistrates’ Court yesterday (Sep 18) where he admitted to drink driving. The court heard that Jaroszek was working for Lamarti’s Ice Cream, one of Norfolk’s biggest firms, during the height of the holiday season on August 12.
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Customers alerted the police because he appeared “intoxicated” and “impaired” while serving them.
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The court was told that once cops had located and stopped his van, around 3.20pm, they “smelt liquor” and noted he was “unsteady on his feet”. He blew a whopping 131mg of alcohol on the breathalyser – nearly quadruple the legal limit of 35 micrograms per 100 millilitres of breath.
The ice cream man was then hauled in for questioning, where the lowest sample of his breath recorded was still a staggering 105mg. Jaroszek, from Albert Square in Yarmouth, insisted he had only downed “two pints of beer”.
The Pole, who required a Polish interpreter in court, confessed to his probation officer that he rarely drinks. He claimed he was only hitting the bottle on this occasion to deal with his depression following his partner’s recent miscarriage.
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Jaroszek admitted that in Poland it’s “quite usual” to have a few drinks, confessing he was clueless about the UK’s tough drink-driving laws.
The magistrates slapped him with a 25-month driving ban and handed down a 12-month community order.
He’s been ordered to do 100 hours of unpaid work, attend 10 rehab days, and pay £199 in court costs.
After his blunder, Lamarti’s Ice Cream fired Jaroszek who’s still on the hunt for a new job.