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Drunk driver’s wet-wipe defence thrown out on appeal

A court of appeal has overturned a non-guilty verdict of a 36-year-old drunk driver who was freed when a wet-wipe containing alcohol was used as evidence.

Published: 9 January 2010 12:42 CET

The man from Vännas, near Umeå in northern Sweden, confessed to driving over the legal limit.

The man was requested to take a blood test and, as is standard medical procedure, a nurse used a packaged wet towel to clean and disinfect the area beforehand.

The towel contained alcohol which was evidence enough for a district court in Umeå to acquit him on all charges.

The case was thrown out because the test, which revealed he had a blood-alcohol content level of over 1,5 milimetres, could not be deemed valid due to the element of alcohol in the towel which could have affected the result.

In the appeal court hearing prosecutor Inga-Lis Adervall-Åström brought in a medical expert who confirmed there is little or no risk that a blood test can be affected by cleaning the area beforehand.

The man was found guilty and sentenced 50 hours of community service.

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Spain has second highest rate of daily alcohol drinkers in EU

Photo: Cristina Quicler/AFP

Thirteen percent of people in Spain drink alcohol every day, a similar rate to Italy, where 12 percent enjoy a tipple on a daily basis, and only behind Portugal, where 20 percent of people have an alcoholic drink seven days a week.

That puts Spaniards above the EU average of 8.4 percent daily drinkers, data published by Eurostat in July 2021 reveals.

This consistent alcoholic intake among Spaniards is far higher than in countries such as Sweden (1.8 percent daily drinkers), Poland (1.6 percent), Norway (1.4 percent), Estonia (1.3 percent) and Latvia (1.2 percent).

However, the survey that looked at the frequency of alcohol consumption in people aged 15 and over shows that weekly and monthly drinking habits among Spaniards are more in line with European averages.

A total of 22.9 percent of respondents from Spain said they drunk booze on a weekly basis, 18.3 percent every month, 12.5 percent less than once a month, and 33 percent haven’t had a drink ever or in the last year.

Furthermore, another part of the study which looked at heavy episodic drinking found that Spaniards are the third least likely to get blind drunk, after Cypriots and Italians.

The Europeans who ingested more than 60 grammes of pure ethanol on a single occasion at least once a month in 2019 were Danes (37.8 percent), Romanians (35 percent), Luxembourgers (34.3 percent) and Germans (30.4 percent).

The UK did not form part of the study but Ireland is included.

Overall, Eurostat’s findings reflect how the Spanish habit of enjoying a glass of wine with a meal or a small beer (caña) outdoors with friends continues to be common daily practice, even though 13 percent does not make it prevalent.

Spaniards’ tendency to drink in moderation also continues to prevail, even though a 2016 study by Danish pharmaceuticals company Lundbeck found that one in six people in the country still drinks too much.

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