A 61-year-old man was intoxicated at about 5:15 p.m., Sunday, when he backed his car into another vehicle, damaging it, and then drove away, Darien police said.
Darien police described the incident with this account (including accusations not proven in court):
At 5:15 p.m., police were called by the owner of the parked car, who said the other vehicle, a 2002 Audi S8, drove away. The victim followed the Audi to a parking lot at 157 Rowayton Ave. in Rowayton, about a mile away, and Darien police went there.
The Audi driver, who lives on Shorefront Drive in Norwalk, was still sitting in his car and the engine was running when police arrived.
The driver said he knew he backed into the other car but didn’t see much damage, so he drove away thinking no harm had been done. When he spoke with the officer, the officer smelled a strong odor of alcohol. The man said he had been drinking at Center Street Public House.
Initially, the driver said he wouldn’t be able to do field sobriety tests because he was too intoxicated, but he did do them and couldn’t complete them in a satisfactory way, so he was arrested on a charge of driving while under the influence. At Darien Police Headquarters the man refused to take a breath test for police to determine his alcohol level.
His driver’s license had expired, and he had previously been cited for driving without a license. He also had a previous arrest in 2005 on a charge of driving while under the influence.
In addition to driving while under the influence, the man was charged Oct. 9 with leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident, unsafe backing and operating a motor vehicle without a driver’s license. He posted a $500 bond and is scheduled to appear Oct. 19 in state Superior Court in Stamford.