Weisdale driver receives eight-month prison sentence and lifetime ban

A 30-year-old man was jailed for eight months and banned from driving for life at Lerwick Sheriff Court today in what the sheriff called “easily the worst case I’ve ever dealt with in driving offences that hasn’t involved serious injury”.

Appearing from custody, Stuart Duncan of Kalliness, Weisdale, pleaded guilty to five driving offences which took place on Sunday afternoon.

He admitted taking and driving away a car from Kalliness without the consent of the owner, driving without insurance on the A971 in Weisdale, driving while disqualified and driving dangerously at grossly excessive speed on the wrong side of the road while under the influence of alcohol. As a consequence of this he collided with another vehicle.

Procurator fiscal Duncan MacKenzie said the driver of the car with which Duncan collided not far from Kalliness had pulled off the road to minimise the impact. The police were summoned and Duncan failed a roadside breath test. This revealed that he was twice over the drink driving limit, with 74 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes. Duncan was arrested and taken to the police station.

Mr MacKenzie said the “concerning aspect” of the case was that Duncan, who works as a labourer, had not appeared to show any regret or remorse about the incident. In fact he had been “completely indifferent”.

Although no pedestrians were around at the time, a redd-up had been going on about a mile away and Mr MacKenzie said: “He had no control of the vehicle, it was lucky no-one was seriously injured or killed.”

Defence solicitor Tommy Allan said Duncan’s attitude was perhaps due to a possible personality disorder which meant he did not think through his actions.

Handing down the sentence, Sheriff Graeme Napier said Duncan had previous convictions for all the offences, including five for drink driving. He has to serve four months in prison for taking the car, eight months for driving while disqualified, four months for driving dangerously and six months for the drink driving offence, to be served concurrently.

Duncan had a lifetime driving ban imposed but will be eligible to re-apply for his licence at some time in the future. If he does this, he will have to re-sit an extending driving test. Duncan was admonished on the charge of driving without insurance.