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When James Doherty, 57, recently stood before Justice Deborah Austin in court in Ontario, Canada, and said: “I know it sounds bizarre but …” he was following in an extensive line of defendants worldwide who have proffered unusual excuses.

His story, though, by most standards, was rather odd. He had been stopped by police officers after a report of “an impaired driver” in the district of Forest, where two "stag and doe" celebrations had been taking place. Mr Doherty conceded that his blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit when he was arrested. But he said the real reason that his judgment might have been impaired was that he had been struck by lightning. It wasn’t so much that he’d hit the bottle as that he’d been hit by the weapon of Zeus.

Justice Austin said it was one the most unusual explanations for poor judgment she had ever heard. Doherty acknowledged previous convictions for impaired driving during the 1980s and early 1990s (although he did not furnish the court with meteorological records to explain earlier events), and he was jailed for 30 days. How far the rapid consumption of strong liquor can leave someone feeling electrocuted was not a matter investigated by the court.

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There have, though, been drink-drive defences just as unconventional as that of Mr Doherty. For example, arrested for driving while being four times over the blood-alcohol limit in 2002, Douglas Harvey, of Glenrothes, in Fife, Scotland, explained that although he had not imbibed too much whisky, an unusual condition from which he suffered meant that his liver actually produced alcohol. Although the science to support the “human-distillery” theory was not furnished to Perth Sheriff Court, Mr Harvey volunteered to undergo surgery to prove his claim. But, after letting the offer rest on a knife edge for a while, he changed his stance before any explorative surgery was commissioned by the bench, and pleaded guilty to two drink-driving charges. He was banned from driving and fined £450.

Last year in Australia, when caught driving five times over the limit, Stephen James Diggs, told Darwin police officers simply: “We were hunting pigs ... I had a few beers, bro”. But he later elaborated and raised an unprecedented mosquito defence. He said that while on the hunt he had run out of insect repellant spray and his drunken journey by car became necessary to avoid a swarm of savage mosquitoes. He escaped the bites but not a conviction.

Professor Slapper is Director of the Centre for Law at The Open University. His recent book How the Law Works is published by HarperCollins

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