A SUSPECTED drink driver's panic-stricken flight through fields, woodlands and streams to avoid capture left him exhausted and with cuts all over his face and arms, but he need not have bothered.

Truro magistrates heard that when he was finally caught and tested he registered zero for alcohol. Albert Pellow, 57, of Tudor Lodge Park, Truthwall, Crowlas, Penzance, pleaded guilty to obstructing two police officers. Alison May, prosecuting, said officers had received information about the vehicle he was driving at 11pm on June 3 and near Crowlas they flashed their lights at it to stop. When it did, Pellow got out and ran off and the officers lost him in the dark. A dog handler was called in and followed a track through hedges, fields and woodland streams until they found him exhausted and cut. He admitted he had been driving and was arrested.

Jeremy Leaning, mitigating, said Pellow, a self-employed stone mason and Cornish hedge builder, had a "mad unthinking moment" when he should have known better. He had feared he would be over the limit but it was groundless as he later tested at zero alcohol in his breath. He was caught an hour after he left his car. He had been drinking but it had obviously found its way through his system. Pellow was fined £360 with £80 costs and victim surcharge.