Pub baron Peter De Angelis charged with high range drink driving in Land Rover

Peter De Angelis will appear in Liverpool Local Court for sentencing on a charge of being drunk at the wheel of his Land Rover.

Pub baron Peter De Angelis, nephew of the rich-lister Arthur Laundy, has a small problem on his hands. A small high-range drink-driving problem, to be precise.

In two weeks time the established hotelier will appear in Liverpool Local Court for sentencing on a charge of being soaking drunk at the wheel of his Land Rover, an allegation to which he pleaded guilty at the first available opportunity. Good on him; there wasn’t much of a case to fight anyway.

According to police, De Angelis was pulled over by highway patrol officers around 9pm on April 1 at an RBT along Darlinghurst’s McLachlan Ave.

Clearly soused, he blew a positive result by the side of the road and then an impressively boozy 0.171 after being escorted to Kings Cross Police Station for the secondary breath analysis. His licence was suspended on the spot and he was ordered to appear in court a month later.

DHI Hotels and Investments is the family pub and tavern business, an enterprise with a portfolio of assets across southwestern Sydney and notionally controlled by De Angelis’ sister, Nicole. Their links to their cousins, the Laundys, who run a separate pub empire, are braided through the family matriarch, Robyn. She’s Arthur’s sister.

We’re wondering what effect, if any, this might have on Peter’s ability to hold a directorship at DHI alongside Nicole, his younger brother, Phillip, and father Alcide – or Arch, as he’s known.

Peter De Angelis in 2014.

NSW’s famously restrictive liquor and gaming regulator may not abide Peter on the board if he’s slapped with a high-range drink driving conviction – if one is indeed recorded on June 18.

He didn’t comment when contacted.

It’s one of several wrinkles being ironed out with this storied publican family at the moment. Elsewhere, Robyn has similarly fallen foul of the law, judging by an interim apprehended domestic violence order taken out by police on behalf of her son-in-law, Brendan Hood. He’s married to Nicole.

Not exactly clear what prompted the need for an ADVO to be taken against his mother-in-law (who hasn’t dreamt of doing the same, right?) but court filings tell us that Robyn is henceforth prohibited from assaulting, threatening, stalking, harassing, intimidating, destroying any property – or harming any animal – belonging to Hood.

Robyn didn’t respond to a request for comment and efforts to contact Hood were unsuccessful. You really have to wonder what on earth has broken down here?

It’s also possible that the trouble traces its way back to yet another set of legal proceedings on foot, a matter currently in its mediation phase, the specifics of which remain equally mysterious.