Frankel’s jockey Tom Queally has been banned from driving for 22 months after a court rejected his claim he was sleep walking while drink driving.
Queally, who rode the unbeaten Frankel to all his 14 wins, was more than twice over the limit after being found asleep behind the wheel of his BMW.
He claimed he had not been drinking, then “rolled” out of a police car and lay down on the ground after being arrested, Crewe Magistrates’ Court heard.
But his lawyer Nick Freeman claimed the 30-year-old, was “morally totally innocent” as he was “sleep driving” at the time and claimed the law needed to be changed.
The celebrity lawyer claimed Queally was forced to admit the charge of drink driving because the law had not caught up with medical science in recognising sleep walking as a legal defence for drink driving.
Queally gave a reading of 84 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35.
On the night of the incident, Queally enjoyed an evening out with his friend and manager Nicholas Whittle and Freeman said the jockey’s last recollection was reading Hare and Hounds on a bed at Whittle’s house around 2am.
Freeman said there was a history of sleep walking in Queally’s family and the defendant had sleep walked from the age of five.
After listening to the defence mitigation, the judge said previous legal authorities had ruled sleep walking was not a defence for drink driving.
