TV presenter and DJ Ryan Hand was twice legal drink drive limit when he crashed into another car after a day at Irish Open in Royal Co. Down

Standing in the dock of Downpatrick Magistrates Court wearing a navy shirt and trousers 37-year-old Hand, with an address at Mountearl Gardens in London, was charged with driving with excess alcohol and careless driving arising from the road traffic collision on 14 September last year.

Defence counsel Noel Dillon confirmed that Hand was entering guilty pleas to both charges and asked for the defendant’s case to be dealt with.

Hand had been DJing at the Irish Open in Royal Co. Down that day when he opted to get behind the wheel of a Fiat 500 car.

A prosecuting lawyer told the court it was around 11pm when the PSNI received a report of a two vehicle RTC on the Castlewellan Road in Newcastle and when officers arrived at the scene, Hand’s car was lying on the driver’s side and the TV presenter was “trapped behind the wheel.”

The driver of the other vehicle, a Renault Clio, told police how the Fiat 500 being driven by Hand had “veered across the road” and crashed into her and in the crash, she sustained a fractured ankle.

Both drivers had to be cut from their respective vehicles by the Fire Service and when police spoke to Hand, they noted that “his speech was slurred and he smelt of intoxicating liquor.”

He failed a preliminary breath test and when he was taken to hospital, doctors took a blood sample which when analysed for alcohol gave a reading of 199mgs per 100 mls of blood.

The limit for blood alcohol is 80 and as the prosecutor highlighted Hand was “almost two and a half times the limit.”

The TV presenter was however “extremely remorseful about his involvement” and Mr Dillon said the guilty pleas at the earliest opportunity evidenced that remorse, adding that Hand “would like to apologise” to the lady he crashed into.

Conceding that Hand is “fortunate in terms of the charges directed” by the PPS given the driver’s injuries, the barrister said Hand knew he had to be disqualified but he urged the judge to keep the ban to the minimum.

District Judge Amanda Brady told Hand however that given the fact he was more than twice the legal drink drive limit “you cannot expect the minimum.”

“Bearing in mind the guilty pleas and the lack of a record,” the judge said she was imposing an 18 month driving ban in addition to fines amounting to £500.

According to his website Hand has “the versatility of a Swiss army knife. He’s a TV and Radio presenter, DJ, author and songwriter, with a few strings to his bow.”

Since starting as a runner for BBC NI in 2008, he got his “big break in 2017 working on ITV's Cannonball, alongside Freddie Flintoff.

He was also the DJ for Q radio weekend breakfast between 2022 and 2024.