Dean Kenneth Booth in court for drink driving

A South Burnett businessman told police he was just moving his car ‘around the corner’ from the pub when he was busted not wearing a seatbelt and almost four times over the legal limit.

The Hivesville Hotel. Dean Kenneth Booth, 50, pleaded guilty in Murgon Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday to drink driving and not properly wearing a seatbelt.

A Burnett man paid a heavy price for moving his car “around the corner” while drinking at a Hivesville pub in December 2023.

Dean Kenneth Booth, 50, pleaded guilty in Murgon Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday to drink driving and not properly wearing a seatbelt.

The court heard on December 8, 2023 police saw Booth driving on Wondai Proston Rd in Hivesville while not wearing a seatbelt. They pulled him over and found he had been drinking. it heard.

Booth admitted to drinking “seven or eight stubbies” and blew a reading of .188 per cent.

“I made a gross mistake,” Booth told the court.

“I just had to move the car around the corner from the pub; I had been there in the afternoon,” he said.

Booth told the court he ran his own small business in agriculture and travelled around Queensland for his work.

“Not having a licence … is going to be very costly for me,” he said.

“I travel from Monto as far as Clermont and far south as Maryborough.

“I’ve already hired a driver to get me around … at considerable expense.”

The Hivesville Hotel. Dean Kenneth Booth, 50, pleaded guilty in Murgon Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday to drink driving and not properly wearing a seatbelt.

Magistrate Andrew Sinclair said it was Booth’s second drink driving offence in five years, along with high limit drink driving offences before that.

“It’s regrettable you haven’t learnt from those,” Mr Sinclair said.

Mr Sinclair fined Booth $1500 for the drink driving, on top of the $1161 fine he received for not wearing a seatbelt.

Booth was also disqualified from holding a licence for 18 months.

Because Booth blew over the mid-range alcohol limit, Mr Sinclair told him that after the 18 months he would need to spend $2000 to fit an interlock system into any car he drove for 12 months, otherwise he would not be allowed to drive for a further five years.

An interlock device is a breath test which the driver must blow into and return a negative reading for alcohol before driving.

The device also requires further tests to be conducted periodically throughout the drive and any failure of the test would result in the car ignition not starting.

Originally published as Dean Kenneth Booth in court for drink driving