Driving ban for Zara Phillips' partner after beer, vodka and champagne binge

MIKE Tindall, the England rugby player, was banned from getting behind the wheel of a vehicle for three years yesterday after drinking beer, vodka and champagne before driving.

The 30-year-old admitted being over the legal limit when he was pulled over by police on the M4 in Berkshire in March last year, the morning after a day's drinking at a horseracing festival with his long-term partner, Zara Phillips, the Queen's eldest granddaughter.

Tindall, of Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, was also ordered to pay a £500 fine and £75 costs when he appeared at Reading Magistrates' Court.

Police were patrolling the motorway on 15 March when a Range Rover Sport appeared to be breaking the 70mph limit.

Victoria Griffiths, prosecuting, said the vehicle was being driven "erratically" and was touching the white lines on either side of the lane, before swerving across all three lanes.

Police officers who stopped Tindall could smell alcohol on his breath. He admitted he had drunk alcohol the day before, but not that day.

A blood test later showed Tindall had a level of 91mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood. The legal limit is 80mg.

He had been driving to Twickenham to commentate on England's Six Nations game against Ireland when he was stopped at about 10:45am, the day after his visit to the races in Cheltenham with Ms Phillips.

The court was told that Tindall said he had drunk a Budweiser, a bottle of Beck's and a Carling, followed by seven glasses of champagne in the evening. He later went to a restaurant, where he drank a further beer and a vodka and Red Bull, finishing drinking at about midnight.

The court heard Tindall had a previous conviction for drink driving in 2000, for which he was disqualified for 16 months.

At the time of the latest offence, he was nursing a bruised liver, an injury he suffered while playing against Wales that had left him in intensive care. He had pleaded guilty in July, but the case had been delayed by other court hearings while his lawyers sought to produce medical evidence regarding the effect of the injury on his liver function.

Last night, Tindall warned other motorists of the danger of driving the morning after drinking alcohol.

He said: "I have learned that what you perceive to be a safe time to wait before one drives after drinking, particularly the following morning, can be totally wrong, and I apologise for my actions."

His barrister, Marcus Milliken-Smith, said Tindall would continue to participate in children's rugby camps despite his disqualification.

The rugby player will undertake a drink-drive rehabilitation course as part of his punishment.

Tindall smiled as he left court, but declined to comment to reporters.


An A-list couple beset by mishaps

THEY are a couple who seemingly have it all: the good looks, rude bank balances, sporting prowess and the royal connection.

Mike Tindall and Zara Phillips met nearly six years ago while celebrating England's success at the Rugby World Cup in Australia.

At the time, she was called the "royal rebel", a tabloid tag she sometimes justified. Ms Phillips, 12th in line to the throne, made headlines after piercing her tongue and frequenting night spots, before embarking on a stormy union with the jockey Richard Johnson.

Since meeting Tindall, however, she has settled, and until recently the only whispers around the couple concerned the possibility of marriage.

Their annus horribilis of 2008, however, has subsumed everything. It began in February when Tindall, playing for England against Wales, suffered serious injuries after an accidental collision, putting him in intensive care for three days.

The following month, Tindall chose an unusual method of recuperation – the drinking session at Cheltenham racecourse that earned him his second conviction for drink-driving.

The same month, Ms Phillips suffered the first in a series of mishaps, when her horse, Toytown, was withdrawn from the World Cup qualifier. A few weeks later, injury to her steed ruled her out of the Olympics. Worse followed in October, when she broke her collarbone in a fall in France.