Nicholas Jones: Sloshed triple-0 operator fronts court for ‘serious’ offence
A triple-0 operator blew more than three times the legal limit with a couple of kids in the car earlier this year. Find out what happened when he appeared in court.
Illawarra Star
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A triple-0 police dispatch operator has avoided a sentence after blowing more than three times over the legal limit in a school zone earlier this year.
Nicholas Jones pleaded guilty to driving with a high-range PCA in Kiama Local Court on Monday with Magistrate Claire Girotto deeming his actions a “very serious” offence.
The incident occurred in June when Jones was driving two children in his Kia Sportage.
Jones was pulled over by officers from Lake Illawarra Highway Patrol on Terry St, Albion Park, to conduct a random breath test where the 43-year-old blew a blood-alcohol reading of 0.181.
Jones didn’t have his licence on him and after being taken to Lake Illawarra Command he told police he’d knocked back three quarters of a bottle of bourbon between 3.30am and 5.30am because he had “woken up and was unable to get back to sleep”.
In court on Monday, his lawyer revealed Jones had been diagnosed with PTSD earlier this year as a result of working through the 2019/20 summer bushfires.
Jones was left unable to work and often resorted to downing half a bottle of whiskey just to get to sleep.
However, since being caught drink driving, Jones has received the appropriate medication and was now “largely on top” of his illness.
Magistrate Girotto said he put the lives of the children he was driving and those around him in “real danger”, but felt a community corrections order was not in order given Jones was at “no risk of reoffending”.
The magistrate convicted Jones with no further penalty and suspended his licence for six months backdated to the day of the offence – the minimum suspension for the offence.
When Jones is allowed back behind the wheel, he will have to have an interlock device for 24 months.
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