Ant McPartlin, the taller half of entertainment duo Ant & Dec, has been arrested on suspicion of driving whilst unfit through excess alcohol.
McPartlin, 42, was involved in a three car collision on the afternoon of Sunday, 18th March 2018. The incident took place in Richmond, West London when McPartlin and his mother, Christine Woodhall, were returning home having just walked their dogs in Richmond Park.
It has been reported, although not confirmed, that McPartlin's black Mini Cooper veered onto the wrong side of the road when exiting a roundabout. Details of the incident are unclear, but it is known that the black Mini Cooper collided with at least one of the other vehicles. A young child passenger in one of the vehicles had to undergo hospital treatment as a result of the collision.
As is routinely the case, McPartlin was asked to undertake a roadside breath test. He was arrested when that test gave a positive result. He was taken to a South London police station and released pending further investigations in the early hours of Monday morning.
The whole episode has been a very hot topic of conversation and several people have asked what is likely to happen next to McPartlin. Of course we can't be entirely sure of the events following his arrest, but we can have an educated guess about the course of events so far.
When McPartlin was taken to the police station he would have been booked in by the Custody Sergeant. At the earliest opportunity he would have been taken to the breathalyser room and asked to provide an evidential specimen of breath on the very accurate, Home Office approved breathalyser machine. Two samples of breath are provided in quick succession and each one is analysed by the machine. The sample of breath containing the lowest proportion of alcohol is that used if the police decide to charge the driver.
The legal limit is 35 mcg of alcohol in 100 ml of breath, but the police would normally only charge the driver if the lowest reading was above 39 mcg.
If the driver had a genuine medical inability to provide a specimen of breath, or the breathalyser machine was defective, then blood or urine would be taken as an alternative. Until fairly recent drivers blowing between 40 and 50 mcg on the breathalyser machine had the statutory option of replacing their specimen of breath with a specimen of blood or urine, but this is no longer the case.
Blood and urine samples, if provided, take weeks to analyse, so the driver would normally be released on bail until the results were known. The driver would have to report to the police station at some future date, when they would either be charged or released without charge depending on the outcome of the blood or urine tests.
The police do not always formally bail drivers in this situation. Occasionally the driver is allowed to leave, as appears to be the case with McPartlin, and will be notified of the outcome at some later date. If the result is positive, the first the driver might know about it is when they receive a postal requisition to appear at court.
We'll be interested to see how this story develops and how close our educated guesses are to reality!
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