A PRISON support worker who failed to make a seal around the mouthpiece of a police breathalyser has been banned from driving for a year.

David Mugo, 30, appeared before magistrates in Swindon and admitted a charge of failing to provide a specimen of breath for analysis.

Prosecutor Nick Barr told the court that Mugo had been driving his car on the A419 Swindon bypass at 5.16pm on December 18 last year in a manner that gave police officers a cause for concern.

When the police indicated to Mugo that he should pull over he at first appeared to be about to be taking a slip road but instead stopped on a live carriageway, Mr Barr told the bench.

A roadside breath test gave a positive reading but at the police station Mugo, despite several attempts, did not to make a seal around the mouthpiece of the breathalyser and so failed to provide a specimen for analysis.

Mugo told the court that he worked as a health care assistant/support worker at a medium-security prison.

He was required to prepare high-security prisoners for low-security prisons by introducing them to the community, he said.

His duties included taking the prisoners shopping, escorting them to courts and taking them for leisure activities such as films.

He said that if he lost his driving licence he would be unable to get to work, 60 miles from where he lived, because of the long hours he worked and the remote location of the prison.

When asked by magistrates if he could not transfer to another prison nearer his home he told them that because of the risk to communities all medium-secure sites were in fairly remote places.

Magistrates disqualified Mugo, of Burgess Hill, West Sussex, from driving for 12 months, fined him £440 and ordered him to pay court costs of £85 and a victim surcharge of £45.

He elected to attend a drink-drivers rehabilitation course which, if completed, would reduce the disqualification period by 91 days.