A STOURPORT drink-driver caught by police a month after he was banned from the road has escaped a jail sentence.

Aston Amos was one-and-a-half times the legal limit when he was stopped in a Vauxhall Astra in Blackwell Street, Kidderminster, on December 4 last year, Worcester Crown Court was told.

Richard Davenport, prosecuting, said the car was stopped because it did not have lights on and when Amos was breathalysed he was found to have 64 micro grams of alcohol to 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit is 35.

The 27-year-old was found to have been banned from driving just a month before for accumulating 12 penalty points and was also in breach of an 18 month sentence suspended for two years for a drugs offence.

Richard Gibbs, defending, said Amos had lost his job because he had been driving a company car and had not told his employers he had been banned.

He had tried to solve his problems by binge drinking but now realised he had got himself into a mess and had lost his home because he could not pay his rent, Mr Gibbs told the court. He now lived with a relative in Barnfield Road, Stourport on Severn.

"He recognises he has been foolish," Mr Gibbs said.

Judge Daniel Pearce-Higgins, QC, said he had decided to give Amos a community order and not to activate the suspended sentence, which will remain in place.

He was ordered to do 100 hours of unpaid work and 10 days of a rehabilitation requirement and was banned from driving for 18 months.

"This is very much your final chance," the judge told him.