Sleeping in a van while drunk?

Yes you can get done the only way not to is not to be in possession of the vehicle keys, see below for the case

Peter Sheldrake, of Hatfield Peverel, Essex, who was found asleep in his van in a car park in 2001. He claimed that he had made attempts to arrange alternative transport home but was convicted at Colchester Magistrates’ Court of being in charge of the vehicle while unfit, and given 160 hours of community service. Sheldrake failed to convince the magistrates that he had not intended to drive the vehicle, and later complained that he should not have to prove his innocence.

Upholding the conviction, the House of Lords has ruled this month that the charge under the 1988 Road Traffic Act did not infringe the right to a fair trial provided for in Article 6(2) of the European Convention on Human Rights. There was in the charge no irrebuttable presumption of guilt, and defendants were given a reasonable scope to exonerate themselves. Lord Bingham of Cornhill ruled that the offence of being “in charge while unfit” did not require proof from the prosecution of an “intention to drive”. There were, he noted, many instances of legislation in which “Parliament has clearly intended to attach criminal consequences to proof of defined facts, irrespective of an individual’s state of mind”.

Strasbourg jurisprudence has also condoned such laws. In a 1988 decision it was noted that the contracting states could “penalise a simple or objective fact, as such, irrespective of whether it results from criminal intent or from negligence”. Lord Bingham explained that in cases such as those of “being in charge of a vehicle while unfit”, the task of the court was to “assess whether a burden enacted by Parliament unjustifiably infringes the presumption of innocence”. In this case, bearing in mind the seriousness of the wrong to be controlled, and the opportunity of the defendant to rebut the charge (by showing that there was no likelihood of his driving while drunk), the Act was proportionate to the mischief to be addressed. Lord Bingham noted that a person in charge of a car when unfit would be expected to hand the keys to someone else or stay well away from his vehicle.

The police have to prove an intention to drive (in charge of vehicle while drunk)

If you are booked into a campsite for the night and are set up for a nights stay then they would have no chance of proving an intention to drive while drunk

One way round sleeping on the highway might be to fit a device to immobilize the van like a wheel clamp of steering wheel lock and give you mates the key till you are sober then you could back up your claim that you had no intention of driving, but personally I would still be very wary about do it on the highway

My T3 has a different key for the ignition than the doors. Therefore I remove the ignition key and crook lock key, put the crook lock on and place the keys in a hidding place.

Mr plod tackles me and I tell him a mate has my ignition key and crook lock key and I only have keys for the doors so I can't drive it. If the wife is with me I give her the keys because she doesn't drink.

Nick

Great thread with good facts and solutions.

I've NEVER drunk drove in 20 years of driving, and it has never been my intention to either.

HOWEVER.

When I was 18 I remember going to a party one night, again with no intention of driving home, getting " bladder ed " and sleeping in the car on the side of the road, WITH THE ENGINE RUNNING to keep warm !!!.

Talk about dodgy.

Surely some good sense would prevail?

I'm often camping in the van after a few sherbets.  If I'm actually in bed, under the duvet, with the front passenger seat swivelled, the engine cold and a load of bags on the driver's seat, in the middle of the night, no reasonable interpretation of the circumstances would say that I was in charge of the vehicle and/or intended to drive it or had just driven it and somehow dived into the back and under the covers???

Maybe I could lock the "clutch claw" onto the pedals in future just to be sure?