A POLICE officer who lives in Gwent resigned after he was caught nearly three times over the drink drive limit on the M4 toll bridge, a court heard.

Andrew Wiseman, aged 41, of Rockfield Way, Undy, appeared at Newport Magistrates' Court yesterday.

He pleaded guilty to driving a motor vehicle with excess alcohol, following an off-duty incident on the westbound M4 at Chepstow on December 21.

Magistrates banned Wiseman, understood to have been a PC with Wiltshire Police, from driving for 20 months, and ordered he pay a £500 fine, £42 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

Catherine Yardley, prosecuting, said: "At 12.20am the defendant was involved in a collision on the westbound M4.

"His car had driven into the rear of vehicle while paying at the toll plaza.

"The vehicles suffered limited damage and no injuries were sustained to anyone involved.

"The toll plaza staff believed the defendant was intoixicated, the police were called and he took a breathliser test which showed he had 94 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath."

The legal limit is 35 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath.

Wiseman represented himself at the hearing, and apologised to the court for his behaviour.

He told the court he had been a serving police officer but had resigned as a result of the incident.

Chairman of the bench Stephen Phillips said: "You are well aware of the drink driving campaigns, you have seen them throughout your police career.

"You should have taken that into consideration on the day of the offence.

"You have shown a great amount of remorse and you've lost your job, so it has been a very difficult balancing act taking all these different things into consideration.

"Normally we would have considered a community based penalty."