DAILY MAIL columnist Nigel Dempster was disqualified from driving for two years and fined £1,500 at Richmond Court on Monday in a three year ordeal that has cost the taxpayer more than £26,000.

The 62-year-old tattle-writer had initially denied drinking after crashing his car near Ham Common in February 2001, but later admitted drinking a bottle of wine.

The court heard earlier that he had been watching a rugby international on television and had drunk a bottle of wine. He then decided to go and pay a newspaper bill but crashed into several bollards, hit a lamp post and overturned his Honda on a pedestrian crossing.

Police officers attending the scene had found him inside an off-licence nearby his toppled car telling the court that they could smell him from three feet away. A breath test was administered which he failed.

He appeared in court this week to receive sentencing along with seven other men also found guilty of driving with excess alcohol. Their cases had been merged together because of similar arguments in the reliability of breath testing equipment.

Dempster, previously described as ‘beyond contempt’ when found guilty last week had already escaped a drink driving conviction after a judge overturned the case and accepted that he refused to take a blood test because of a fear of needles.

But on Monday a contrite Dempster listened as District Judge Paul Clark told him: " I am in no doubt that your ability to drive was severely impaired because of the amount you had to drink. That’s the only explanation I can see for you turning your car over and onto a pedestrian crossing."

Robin Falvey, defending Dempster, told the hearing yesterday that his client had not intended to drive, but that 'a dog had run out across the road and part of the cause of the accident was his attempts to actually avoid that dog'.

Mr Falvey added to his mitigation that the recent death of a brother-in-law from cancer together with a very difficult divorce was of great distress to his client.

Dempster, who will also pay court costs of £840, agreed to enrol on the drink driving rehabilitation course which could see his disqualification reduced by 25 per cent.