POLICE found a tomahawk axe in the boot of a BMW crashed by a drunk driver in Crewe, a court heard.

Grzegorz Wlodarczyk said he was using the axe to chop wood in his garden, but magistrates ordered probation reports on the 30-year-old and handed him an interim driving ban.

Prosecutor Hannah Scott told South Cheshire Magistrates' Court that police attended a road traffic accident on West Street on January 22 this year. Wlodarczyk was driving one of the vehicles involved in the collision and a roadside breath test showed he was over the drink-drive limit.

At the police custody suite in Middlewich he gave a breathalyser reading of 54mcg of alcohol in 100 ml of breath; the legal limit is 35.

When officers went with the defendant's wife to attend to the crashed car they found the axe in its boot.

"He (Wlodarczyk) said he had used it last summer when he was cutting wood," said the prosecutor.

Wlodarczyk, of Audley Street, Crewe pleaded guilty to drink driving and possession of an offensive weapon.

He represented himself in court and said he'd drunk two lagers and slept before getting into his car.

Regarding being in possession of an axe, the warehouse operative said: "I would never hurt anyone. This was a tool I used to maintain my garden. I'm not a criminal and never will be."

Magistrates adjourned the case until March 3 for sentencing.