A DRUNKEN motorist ploughed into a parked Range Rover, causing £10,000 worth of damage, before abandoning his car and claiming someone had stolen it.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that the incident happened shortly before 5am on May 2 last year when Aleksejs Gorbiks's car hit a parked Range Rover in Prescot Road, St Helens, shunting it five yards on to the pavement.

He abandoned his Volvo and when he got home claimed his address in Webster Street, Kensington, had been burgled and his car keys stolen, said Chris Taylor, prosecuting.

When police repeatedly called at his home he failed to let them in and was not arrested until November, by which time cell site evidence showed he had been at the scene of the crash at the time of the collision.

At the time of the crash, Gorbiks told police that someone had burgled his Kensington home and, among other items, had stolen the keys to his Volvo. He said he was not responsible for the crash.

Police spent a considerable time investigating both the crash and alleged burglary but eventually Gorbiks' story fell apart and he ended up pleading guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Sentencing the 33-year-old Latvian to five months suspended for two years, Judge Steven Everett said: “But for our system of public justice running properly our country would fall into anarchy.

"Without that system of public justice we might just as well give up.

“Those who pervert it strike at the root of the system of public life.”

Gorbiks claimed he had fallen asleep while driving his car but the judge said that while he had escaped being prosecuted for drink driving, as he was not caught for a long time after, “you must have had a lot to drink.”

He consequently banned him from driving for 18 months and also ordered him to pay £600 compensation to the Range Rover owners, who had to pay that amount in insurance excess.

Gorbiks was also ordered to carry out 100 hours unpaid work and 20 days rehabilitation activity.

The court heard that since the incident Gorbiks, now of Thornycroft Road, Waverteee, has been banned from driving until December for aggravated vehicle taking involving driving a friend’s car without permission.

Paul Becker, defending, said that the defendant is a hard worker who came this country in 2009 and currently works as a packer. He accepted that leaving the scene was a “terrible thing to do” for which he apologised.