Easter Ross driver escapes jail
Alness man was found with vodka bottle on passenger seat
AN EASTER Ross man escaped jail this week after being convicted of his third drink drive-related offence.
Tain Sheriff Court heard that 39-year-old Gordon Macleod from Alness was found in his van by police with an open bottle of vodka on the passenger seat.
Macleod, of Braeface Park, was fined £2,000 and banned from the road for three years at the court on Monday.
He admitted being in charge of a van after consuming so much alcohol that he had 88 microgrammes of it in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35. The offence took place in Main Street, Lairg, on May 8.
Depute fiscal Roderick Urquhart said this was Macleod’s third drink-driving offence since 1995.
At ten minutes past midnight police, who were looking for someone else entirely, came across him sitting in a parked van with the engine running and the reversing lights on.
"They spoke to the accused, who said he had been drinking all night and he intended moving the vehicle to a more secluded spot so he could sleep in it," the fiscal said. "He had an open bottle of vodka sitting on the passenger seat."
Defence solicitor Stephen Lennon said: "At the end of the evening Mr Macleod simply wished to move his vehicle to a safer area. His wife was picking him up. He accepts he foolishly was sitting in the vehicle and was guilty of the offence."
As an excavator driver, the loss of his licence would inevitably result in the loss of his livelihood, the lawyer said.
Sheriff Mungo Bovey QC said it was only with some hesitation he was not sending Macleod to prison. He will get six months off the driving ban if he completes the drink-driver rehab course.
