A MAN has avoided jail after crashing a car with a blood-alcohol content more than six times the legal limit.

Mark Coulton, aged 47, was on Monday last week sentenced by Raymond Terrace Local Court to a twelve-month intensive corrections order after his single-vehicle crash at Fern Bay in the early afternoon of 3 May 2022.

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This type of order is a sentence served in the community supervision by the Community Corrections Department.

The court heard Coulton had become frustrated with his physical and mental health before crashing into a brick pier outside an aged-care home on Nelson Bay Road.

NSW Ambulance and Fire and Rescue NSW crews responded to the incident, with police observing Mr Coulton showing signs of intoxication.

After the crash he recorded a blood-alcohol reading of 0.316 – more than six times the legal limit.

Mr Coulton wrote a letter of apology to the court in which he described his behaviour as “heinous” and “careless”.

Magistrate Ian Cheetham said Mr Coulton, a physiotherapist who works as a sole practitioner, was clearly an intelligent man and was considered a low risk of re-offending, but that “in any view, it’s an alarming example of this type of offending.

“It is difficult to imagine a more serious case of an offence of this type,” he said.

“It would only be more serious if someone was injured or killed.”

Mr Coulton has been disqualified from driving for nine months.

By Tara CAMPBELL