The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
A Spalding man has told a court he had ‘fallen in with the wrong crowd’ after he was arrested for driving under the influence of cannabis.
James McCormack. 33, of Pennygate, admitted driving while under the influence of drugs and also to an offence of refusing to supply a sample for analysis at Nuneaton in Warwickshire.
Prosecuting, Marie Stace said he was stopped in Pinchbeck Road at 1.20am on December 21 last year and provided a drugs wipe and was arrested, later giving a blood reading of 3.5 microgrammes of cannabis in his bloodstream, the legal limit being two.
She added that earlier this year he had been arrested in Nuneaton after he refused to supply a sample for analysis for an alleged excess alcohol offence.
Boston magistrates were also told he had a previous excess alcohol conviction in January 2017.
Michael Alexander, in mitigation, said McCormack had ‘fallen in with the wrong crowd’ after working up to 16 hours a day, six days a week, constructing covid centres and had started taking cannabis, although he had now stopped after help from an addiction group.
He said McCormack had refused the breath test in Nuneaton because he felt he had been treated ‘roughly’ by officers in Nuneaton.
He added that McCormack would lose his job as a result of the inevitable driving ban.
The magistrates banned him from driving for three years and ordered him to undertake 100 hours of unpaid work for the community, fined him £300 and £180 in court costs and charges.
He was offered the drink drivers’ rehabilitation course which will reduce the period of the ban by 36 weeks.
