A prominent wildlife conservationist has pleaded guilty to being behind the wheel of a ute while he had a blood-alcohol reading more than three times the legal limit.
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Timothy Lawrence Faulkner, who runs the well-known Australian Reptile Park at Somersby and Aussie Ark at Barrington Tops, faced Wyong Local Court on Monday.
He pleaded guilty to one charge of high-range drink-driving.
According to a statement of facts tendered to the court, police found Faulkner asleep in the driver's seat of a Toyota HiLux which was stopped in a bus zone on Wyong Road at Tumbi Umbi early on the afternoon of December 4 last year.
Court documents said police made "a number of attempts" to wake the 41-year-old.
When he was eventually roused, he told them "I'm not driving".
He returned a positive breath test at the scene and was taken to Wyong police station, where he recorded a blood-alcohol reading of 0.159.
Faulkner told police he drank three premixed cans of gin and lemonade that morning.
His licence was immediately confiscated.
After Faulkner pleaded guilty to the charge in court on Monday, magistrate Robert Munro released him on a 12-month bond without conviction.
Nick Bielby
Nick Bielby is a crime reporter who has worked as a journalist since 2011. Having joined the Newcastle Herald in 2017, he won a Walkley Award in 2019 with Donna Page for their investigation 'Dirty Deeds', which exposed the decades of illegal dumping of toxic material in and around a Hunter waterway.
Nick Bielby is a crime reporter who has worked as a journalist since 2011. Having joined the Newcastle Herald in 2017, he won a Walkley Award in 2019 with Donna Page for their investigation 'Dirty Deeds', which exposed the decades of illegal dumping of toxic material in and around a Hunter waterway.
