A 19-year-old man from Moneymore has been fined £250 and disqualified from driving after admitting to driving with excess alcohol in his breath following a single-vehicle collision in September.

Matthew Murray, of Tirgan Road, pleaded guilty at Dungannon Magistrates' Court. He was also ordered to pay a £15 offender's levy and was banned from driving for 12 months.

The court heard that police received a report of an accident on Doon Road at around midnight on September 18. Officers arrived to find a BMW lying across the road. Murray told police his car had clipped the grass verge.

Murray failed a roadside breath test and was taken to Dungannon police station, where he provided an evidential specimen showing an alcohol reading of 53 microgrammes per 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes.

Murray admitted to police that he had consumed two pints of Tennent's lager. His defence solicitor stated that Murray had been drinking with friends earlier in the evening and left early to go to his girlfriend's house.

The court also heard that Murray had recently purchased the car, which was now scrapped, leaving him with a significant financial burden. He works as a groundsman with his father and would be able to get a lift to work.

District Judge Conor Heaney told Murray that if he had crashed into someone else he would be facing imprisonment, and that he was very lucky not to have caused injury or worse.