Gérard Depardieu banned for drunken scooter crash

Gérard Depardieu was banned from the roads for six months and fined £3,500 today for crashing his scooter into a bollard in Paris while almost four times over the legal alcohol limit.

The French actor, 64, right, was breathalysed at the scene near the Champs-Élysées and held in custody for five hours until he had sobered up, the court heard.

The Oscar-nominated star of Green Card and Cyrano de Bergerac had already failed to appear at his first three court hearings due to work commitments and was sentenced in his absence. Now making a revenge thriller in Russia, he was filming in Chechnya recently with Liz Hurley.

The case is the latest in a string of drink-related incidents involving Depardieu, who once admitted drinking up to six bottles of wine a day.

A driver claimed the star punched him in Paris last August but assault charges were dropped. Two years ago, Depardieu was accused of smashing up a car near his home, and he urinated into a bottle on board a passenger jet in Paris.