Former X Factor contestant Chico has appeared in court and pleaded not guilty to drink driving.<\/p>\n
The 54-year-old, whose real name is Yousseph Slimani, appeared in the 2005 series of the TV talent show and later released a number one single, It’s Chico Time.<\/p>\n
Mr Slimani, who arrived at Willesden Magistrates’ Court wearing a cowboy hat and fur coat, had consumed cough medicine – which can impact a reading’s accuracy – his defence said.<\/p>\n
He was bailed until his trial on 9 April.<\/p>\n
The singer, who is accused of drink driving in Southgate, north London, on 13 December, registered a breath reading of 40 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, the court heard.<\/p>\n
The legal limit of alcohol for driving in England is 35 microgrammes per 100 millilitres.<\/p>\n
Mr Slimani was born in Bridgend and moved to his father’s native Morocco as a young child, where he helped look after goats on his grandparents’ farm.<\/p>\n
He now runs a form of guided meditation involving “ancient sounds that are the origin of the universe and help to bring inner peace and tranquillity”, according to his website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former X Factor contestant Chico has appeared in court and pleaded not guilty to drink driving. The 54-year-old,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-259160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115812029164236286","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}