Paul Gascoigne drink-drive case dropped

Ex-England football star Paul Gascoigne has had a drink-drive charge against him dropped, a court confirmed today.

Gascoigne, 43, was due to go on trial at Northallerton Magistrates' Court in North Yorkshire next week after the case was adjourned four times last year.

The ex-Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur player was accused of driving a Ford Transit van while more than four times the limit on February 7 last year at Leeming Bar, North Yorkshire.

But court officials confirmed the case against Gascoigne has been dropped.

Gascoigne was due to appear with his co-accused Michael Harvey, 41, of Wood Street, Gateshead.

Harvey, who has denied driving a Ford Transit van over the legal limit on February 7 last year at Leeming Bar, is still due to go on trial on Tuesday next week.

Magistrates have been told Harvey had 259 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of urine.

Harvey pleaded guilty last year to being in charge of a motor vehicle while over the limit but he has denied driving without insurance and driving while disqualified.

In December, Gascoigne was given an eight-week sentence, suspended for a year, for driving while more than four times the legal alcohol limit.

The troubled ex-midfielder was given the sentence when he appeared at Newcastle Magistrates' Court, which heard he was arrested in the city after police spotted him driving an MG erratically.

Gascoigne was found to have 142mg of alcohol in 100ml of breath - the legal limit is 35mg - when he was tested in the early hours of October 8.

He was banned from driving for three years and given an alcohol treatment order.

The court heard Gascoigne had been in a rehab clinic on the south coast. A district judge was told he had been responding well to treatment at the centre in Dorset and attended Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings.