'Private' docks appeal fails
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• A crown court judge has dismissed an appeal against a drinkdriving charge after ruling that private roads at Holyhead Docks are "open to the public" because Holyhead is a ferry port.
Northern Irish lorry driver David McGill was appealing to Caernarfon Crown Court against his conviction on a drinking and driving offence committed on a private dock road. The court heard that McGill had been drinking on the ferry on its passage from Ireland and someone on board reported him to the police. He was stopped some 50 yards after driving off the ferry at 01:30 hrs and breathalysed. For McGill, John Backhouse argued that the conviction should be quashed because McGill had not been driving on a road open to the public.
He referred to the case of Buchanan in which the High Court held that roads in London Docks, to which the public did not have access either by right or tolerance of the docks authority, were not roads for the purposes of the 1988 Road Traffic Act.
Dismissing the appeal, Judge Derek Halbert said that London Docks was not a ferry port. In the more recent case of Coultnan, it had been held that passengers going out on a ferry were not "the public" as they required a ticket, but passengers disembarking from the ferry were "the public" as they did not require a ticket.
The hearing was adjourned to enable the defence to argue that there are special reasons why McGill should not be disqualified from driving.