TV STAR DROVE DRUNK AND TOOK COCAINE

WILLIAM VAN HAGE, the television gardener and former newspaper columnist,
had been drinking and had snorted cocaine when police stopped him after a
car chase in which he drove at up to 110mph, a court was told yesterday.

The star of the Channel 5 programmes House Doctor and Instant Gardens was
fined more than UKP1,000 and banned from driving for three years after
admitting drink-driving and being in possession of cocaine, a class A drug.

He had since lost a contract with Express Newspapers to write a gardening
column and his agent had withdrawn his services.

However, a spokesman for Channel 5 said future work would be based on
editorial judgment, not on his private life. Charles Gardner said House
Doctor, which was hugely popular and attracted audiences of more than a
million, was under review.

Hertford magistates were told that Van Hage, 38, had been returning home in
August last year, after attending a business meeting in London where he had
drunk wine.

Andrew Dowden, for the prosecution, said that police had pursued his silver
BMW at 3.40am, going north on the A10, at speeds of 110mph. He was
eventually stopped near his home at Great Amwell in Hertfordshire.

Van Hage had more than 1BD times the legal alcohol limit in his blood. At
Hertford police station officers found in his possession 0.2g of cocaine.

Mr Dowden told magistrates: "He openly admitted it was cocaine. He said he
found it on a street in Soho and had taken it into a public toilet and had
snorted some."

Sheilagh Davies, for the defence, said Van Hage, a UKP45,000-a-year director
of his family's business at Great Amwell, was remorseful. She said that
Express Newspapers had terminated his contract. She added that one could
only assume that his television and media career would suffer as a result.

"The temptation to put his new company car through its paces was one he
should have resisted but didn't," she said.

Van Hage, who had a previous conviction for drink-driving in 1992, for which
he was disqualified for 12 months, was fined a total of UKP1,050 and ordered
to pay UKP45 costs.

Checked-by: Don Beck