Mfundekelwa Mkhulisi

Mfundekelwa Mkhulisi

Pretoria high court Judge Nkola Motata was four times over the legal alcohol limit when he crashed his car last year, the Johannesburg magistrate's court heard yesterday.

Motata is facing charges of drunken driving and defeating the ends of justice.

Michael James Stewart, national director of forensic pathology services in the Department of Health, told the court that the level of alcohol in the blood samples drawn from Motata was 0,2g/100ml.

"In the case in question the alcohol at the time in which the sample was taken was 0,2g/100ml," Stewart said. "This was approximately three hours after the alleged offence."

The legal limit is 0,05.

He said the level of alcohol would have been higher at the time of the crash.

"The range of possible alcohol concentrations in the blood at the time of the offence is from 0,23g/100ml to 0,26g/100ml."

He said that was because by the time sample was drawn the body had removed some of the alcohol.

This means if Motata was four times over the legal limit he would have drank eight beers or four double tots of whiskey or any spirit or eight glasses of wine.

Charges against Motata' arise from an incident in which he allegedly crashed his vehicle into the wall of Richard Baird's Hurlingham, Johannesburg, home in January last year.