DRINK-driver Kerry Lind-sell knew he was in trouble after crashing his car on a roundabout in Swindon he was in full view of a coachload of police officers heading home from a night out.

Lindsell, 29, crashed his car on Marlborough Road near the Coate roundabout in the early hours of July 3.

Officers returning from a function were sitting in a stationary coach parked near the Sun Inn public house.

One of them, PC Barrie Card, heard the sound of a vehicle skidding.

He looked round and saw a car with substantial rear end damage which had come across from the other carriageway.

Olive Catton, prosecuting, told Swindon magistrates that the off duty policeman took it upon himself to approach Lindsell and arrest him.

She said: "The officer leaned into the driver's door. There was a strong smell of alcohol.

"He asked him 'Have you been drinking' to which he replied 'I have had a couple of Newcastle Browns'. The officer then identified himself and showed his warrant card.

"He then arranged for a police unit to attend and told the driver he was to stay where he was.

"The defendant said 'You can't keep me here, I am a boxer and you are not going to stop me'.

"The officer then arrested him and told him he wasn't going to leave and made him sit in the back of the car and wait."

She said that when Lind-sell got to Westlea Police Station, a breath test showed he had 63mg of alcohol per 100ml of breath, almost twice the legal limit of 35mg.

Lindsell, of Marlowe Avenue, pleaded guilty to driving with excess alcohol.

Andrew Hobson, defending, said that his client had consumed a couple of bottles of Newcastle Brown and gone out to his car to get something he needed for the following morning and then decided to go for a drive when he lost control and crashed.

"This was in view of a coach load of police officers who were returning from a function," he said.

Lindsell, he said, was very upset about what had happened and was very grateful that he hadn't killed himself or anyone else. He said that Lindsell was currently unemployed and on incapacity benefit, receiving £104 a fortnight, with £15.75 child benefit, as a result of an injury to his knee.

Magistrates fined him £120 with £55 costs and banned him from the road for 21 months.