Morden & Ovel Branch News - Justice For Alex

Alex McGuigan, a popular and long standing member from Morden depot recently fell foul of a random breathalyser test and was summarily dismissed. There the story might end, but in Alex's case however, there is a lot more to it.

Alex is a type two diabetic, a condition which can quite often result in a false positive test result for alcohol. This is well documented medically and there is also legal precedent supporting his case. Because of this his test ought to have been followed by a confirmation urine test to ascertain whether his illness had in fact influenced the test, resulting in a false positive.

The breath test system in question does not actually measure the alcohol in the blood. Rather, they use infrared beams of light. The light beams are absorbed by any chemical compound in the breath sample (including ethyl alcohol) that contains the “methyl group” in its molecular structure. The more absorption, the higher the blood-alcohol reading. The machine is programmed to assume that the compound is “probably” alcohol.

Read the rest of the article in the attached newsletter below