A FORMER Tory MP has been banned from the roads for two years after he fled police while almost twice the legal limit.

Matthew Gordon-Banks, who was MP for Southport between 1992 and 1997, and who now lives in Oxfordshire, was in the dock at Oxford Magistrates’ Court yesterday.

The 55-year old of The Green, Charlbury, who defected to the Liberal Democrats in 2004, had already been convicted of drink driving on December 22 before his sentencing yesterday.

The court heard how on May 14 last year he drove his Ford Ka to a post office at Charlbury at about 10am.

Police were called to the post office after concerns were raised about his state, and when officers arrived they found he had already taken to the road.

Police spotted him driving in their direction and when they turned around to give chase along Enstone Road he did not stop and continued driving.

Police eventually switched on their sirens in a bid to stop him, but the former politician ignored the repeated efforts to get him to pull over.

After some time he pulled into a hospital car park where, smelling strongly of alcohol, he was arrested and taken to Banbury Police Station.

Blood tests found that he had 157 mg of alcohol in 100 ml of blood, putting him nearly twice the legal limit for alcohol while driving.

The legal limit is 80 mg.

His defence argued that on the day of the incident he had been in a ‘fugue state’, meaning he had wandered from home without reason and he was suffering from mental health issues.

He was also suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder at the time and ‘deeply regrets’ what happened according to his defence.

Gordon-Banks was given a two-year disqualification from driving and ordered to pay £1,230 in court costs, fines and a victim surcharge.