A WINCHESTER driver has had his drink drive disqualification set aside by a High Court, which ruled that belching during a breath test can provide a "special reason".

A senior judge allowed an appeal by O Sang Ng, from Hambledon Close against a district judge's ruling that a belch could never amount to a special reason.

In a decision that could affect other belching or burping drivers undergoing intoximeter breath tests, Mr Justice Owen, sitting at London's High Court, ruled that the district judge had erred in law.

He set aside Mr Ng's disqualification and ordered that consideration should now be given to whether Mr Ng's alleged belch actually could count as a special reason.

Mr Justice Owen described how the 46-year-old motorist was charged with driving his Ford Escort car on Andover Road, Winchester, after drinking an excess of alcohol - 53 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35mcg.

Mr Ng was convicted after pleading guilty at Basingstoke Magistrates' Court in January 2006.

In April last year he attempted to argue that there were special reasons why the otherwise obligatory driving ban under the 1988 Road Traffic Offenders Act should not be imposed on him.

''It was submitted on his behalf that the intoximeter reading was affected by eructation - belching in common parlance - during the (breath sampling) procedure,'' said the judge.

''It was further submitted on his behalf that if the reading was artificially inflated by eructation that could as a matter of law amount to a special reason for not disqualifying.'' But District Judge Babington-Browne ruled the belch was ''connected to the offender and not the offence'' and therefore could not amount to a special reason and barred Mr Ng from calling evidence in respect to his mid-test belch.

A differently constituted court, on April 27 2006, fined Mr Ng £130 and disqualified him for 12 months. The disqualification was suspended pending yesterday's High Court appeal.

Allowing Mr Ng's appeal, Mr Justice Owen said the district judge had erred in law.

He declared: "I am satisfied that in this case the evidence upon which the appellant sought to rely before the district judge was directly connected to the offence.

"The disqualification will therefore be set aside and the matter remitted to the Magistrates' Court for reconsideration of special reasons."