by Tejas Mehta
16 September 2010
A drunken driver from Bicester, Oxfordshire, was found to have unlawfully killed his son after both died in a car accident in February this year.
Kitchen fitter Tony Eldridge, who was 36, was neither wearing a seatbelt nor carrying insurance when he crashed the P-reg Subaru Impreza that he had borrowed from his sister’s partner, into a tree on Bucknell Road.
Tests showed that he had 221mg of alcohol per 100ml in his blood. The legal limit is 80. Bradley Aldridge, who was only four years old, had been wearing his seatbelt and was strapped into a booster seat, but the impact of the crash was too severe for either him or his father to survive.
A policeman who arrived on the scene after the accident said the damage to the Japanese sports car was ‘catastrophic.’ PC Gary Taitt said, ‘In 13 and a half years of service, never have I seen such devastation caused to a vehicle.”
The Eldridge family, in a statement, said, “Tony was a devoted family man who worked hard and always had time for others.
“He loved and cherished all three of his children and nothing will ever change that. “Tony and Bradley were like two peas in a pod – lively, outgoing and cheeky, and two very popular characters.
“All our thoughts and memories are brilliant and stay that way. These two special people will always be in our thoughts and for ever in our hearts.”