A LAWYER of more than 30 years’ standing was convicted on Friday of drink driving and two other traffic offences.

Lee Tow Kiat, who has retired and is now unemployed, was found guilty after a trial of drink driving, inconsiderate driving, and failing to give a specimen of his breath to a police officer along Lorong 8 Toa Payoh at past 10pm on May 30, 2005.

Lee’s Jaguar was involved in an accident in the middle of the road that evening. It had hit and mounted a centre road divider, puncturing two tyres.

Police who were alerted arrived at the scene but Lee refused to take a breathalyser test. He was arrested. A breathalyster test done two hours later showed 84mcg ethanol per 100ml of blood in his breath, nearly 2 1/2 times over the legal limit.

In his defence, Lee denied that he was the driver and called witnesses to corroborate his story. But two of the prosecution witnesses living at a block in Lorong 8 said they heard a bang and saw a ponytail man.

Lee was sporting a ponytail at the time. One of the residents had also identified Lee to be the man he saw talking to two others that evening. Lee, insisting that he was not the driver, gave an account of his movements.

He claimed that while taking a cab home after his dinner and drinks at the Singapore Cricket Club, he stopped by a hawker centre along Lorong 8 to buy supper and that was when he saw his car abandoned in the middle of the road.

In convicting him, District Judge Terence Chua found that Lee was the driver of the car, and that the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. In 1993, Lee was fined $1,000 and banned from driving for a year for failing to provide a blood sample for a laboratory test.

Lee’s lawyer, Mr Wee Pan Lee, asked for the case to be adjourned for him to make representations on his client’s two outstanding charges.

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