A farmer who was caught drink driving has been given a three-year disqualification and a £600 fine.

Christopher Buckley, 25, of Sunny Heys, Meltham , was found to be more than twice the drink drive limit when he was involved in a collision with a Land Rover vehicle on Blackmoorfoot Road.

Prosecutor, Alex Bozman, told Kirklees Magistrates’ Court the incident occurred at 10.25pm on October 2.

He said police attended and an hour later officers arrived at his home when he admitted having consumed a couple of pints but an alcohol reading revealed he had 73 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes.

The court heard he had a previous drink driving conviction in March 2009.

Geoffrey Rogers, for the defendant, said he was a very hard-working young man who lived with his partner and two-and-a-half-years-old daughter.

He said: “Effectively he holds down two jobs at the same time. He is employed as a yard manager for a stone sales company based in Huddersfield and has worked there for 16 years.

“The job entails him driving around with stone in a van and disqualification will cause all sorts of problems for him. His employers certainly think very highly of him.

“To compound matters he is also a self-employed farmer, the owner of 500 sheep and a number of cows.

“Effectively, disqualification will be devastating. He can’t afford to employ anyone else and he needs to move his sheep from one field to another four times a week. You may well say that that is his problem, the consequence of drink driving.

“On the day in question he had been up at 4am and had had nothing to eat all day. He finished work at 7.30pm and went to have a drink at two pubs. He accepts he was rather conservative in what he told the officers and had drunk maybe three to four pints”.

The bench disqualified him from driving for three years, fined him £600 as well as a further £295 in various court costs payable at £100 per month.