Premier League footballer Jermaine Pennant has been given an eight-week jail sentence, suspended for a year, and has been disqualified from driving for three years after he admitted drink-driving.
The Stoke City player was more than twice the limit when he got behind the wheel of his BMW to drive back from Manchester in the early hours of April 29, Trafford Magistrates' Court heard.
The 29-year-old was "depressed and stressed" after months of turmoil in his private life and suffering taunts while in a nightclub, it was claimed.
The Stoke City player was more than twice the limit when he got behind the wheel of his BMW to drive back from Manchester in the early hours of April 29, Trafford Magistrates' Court heard.
Pennant had been playing football earlier that day and had arranged for his estranged partner and their 20-month-old child to come and see him perform but they did not turn up.
After suffering that blow, when he got home he found his new girlfriend had taken all her belongings and he received a text message telling him their relationship was over.
Depressed and home alone he accepted an invitation from friends to go to a nightclub in Manchester, the court heard.
But while there he became "distressed" because of comments circulating about his former partner, his lawyer Mike Stephenson said in mitigation.
This "broke the camel's back" and Pennant, unable to book a hotel room in central Manchester, decided to drive home.
He was arrested in the early hours of the morning after being involved in a minor road crash.
The defendant may have been speeding and gone through a red light, the court heard, but he was not prosecuted over the accident.
Pennant was breathalysed and gave a reading of 89mg of alcohol in 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35mg.
Pennant, of Tool Lane, Sandbach, Cheshire, had already been banned form driving earlier that month by JPs in Cannock, Staffordshire, for totting up too many points on his licence.
Today he admitted drink-driving, driving while disqualified, and driving without insurance.