Mobility scooter drink-driving case adjourned due to lack of interpreter

Yesterday’s Stoke Sentinel reports on the case of a Romanian man in court on a charge of being drunk in charge of a mobility scooter.

On 7th August Staffordshire police stopped Romanian-born Silviu Croitoru on the A34 London Road in Newcastle-under-Lyme: 47 year-old Croitrou – now resident in Trent Vale, Stoke-on-Trent – was driving his mobility scooter at the time and gave reading of 95 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath; the legal limit is 35 microgrammes.

Magistrates at the North Staffordshire Justice Centre in Newcastle-under-Lyme adjourned the case to arrange for the attendance of an interpreter and to allow time for defence representations.

One would have thought that if the defendant required an interpreter, this should have been noted and arranged for the initial hearing, but waste and incompetence seem to be endemic in the justice system nowadays.