England rugby player Mike Tindall was banned from driving for three years on Thursday after admitting driving under the influence of alcohol.

The Gloucester centre, the partner of Queen Elizabeth II's granddaughter Zara Phillips, admitted being over the legal drink-drive limit as he drove on a motorway in southeast England in March last year.

Tindall, 30, was arrested the morning after attending the Cheltenham Racing Festival with Phillips, an international showjumper.

Magistrates in Reading were told that on the evening before his arrest, Tindall had drunk three beers followed by seven glasses of champagne.

He later went to a restaurant where he drank another beer, a vodka and an energy drink.

Police arrested him as he drove alone to Twickenham in a Range Rover to commentate on England's Six Nations game against Ireland, after noticing that his car was being driven "erratically" and touching the white lines on either side of the lane.

The court heard Tindall gave a blood test which recorded a level of 91 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit is 80mg.

He has a previous conviction for drink driving in 2000, for which he was disqualified for 16 months.

At the time of his latest arrest, he was out of action with a bruised liver.

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