A FORMER ambulance chief was yesterday convicted of drunkenly crashing his fast response car into a shop.

Robert King, 48, right, was more than three-and-a-half times the drink-drive limit.

He was convicted of drink-driving and given a four-month curfew by a district judge.

He was also banned from driving for 28 months and told to pay £1,000 costs.

The judge earlier heard that King, operations manager for South Central Ambulance Service Trust, careered over a pedestrian crossing and through railings into the shop. He was arrested nearby having stumbled from the wreckage of the Volvo V70 estate car in Woodstock Road, Oxford, on November 30, 2010, and was taken to hospital with cuts.

A blood sample taken at the hospital showed King had 274mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood – the legal limit being 80mg. An open bottle of whiskey and two bottles of beer were found in the vehicle.

The former paratrooper, who served in the Falklands war, had denied one count of drink driving at Oxford Magistrates’ Court but was found guilty by District Judge Tim Pattinson.

King, of Merton Road, Ambrosden, resigned from his operations manager job after being arrested.

Sentencing him, Judge Pattinson said: “With your professional background, which unfortunately for you is now in the past, it is an even more shameful offence given the nature of your work and knowledge you should have acquired in the course of work.”

In a statement, a spokesman for the South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust said: “We sincerely regret that a member of our staff did not live up to the high standards of conduct expected of all our staff even when they are not on duty.”