The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Police followed their noses and caught a drug-driver in Spalding.
Officers got the waft of cannabis as they followed Brett O’Neill’s Hyundai Kona along Pinchbeck Road.
They followed the Sutton St James man turning into Westlode Street and then into a car park behind a nightclub, magistrates in Boston heard on Wednesday.
It was about 2.50am on Christmas Eve last year and O’Neill, who was alone, admitted that he’d had some cannabis about an hour before.
After providing a positive drug wipe, he was arrested.
An evidential test showed a reading of seven micrograms of a body breakdown product of cannabis per litre of blood in his system. The legal limit is two.
O’Neill, of Festival Square, pleaded guilty to drug-driving.
In mitigation, his solicitor said his actions would have a “catastrophic” effect on him and his family.
Carrie Simpson said he had been smoking cannabis at home with a relative and had no intention of driving.
“His son was out in town and rang to say ‘could you pick me up? I’ve run out of money,’” she added.
Miss Simpson said she wished the bench had the discretion not to ban her client from driving as he was disabled and it was a family of six living in a village with few public transport options.
“The car is a lifeline for work, the doctor’s, chemist’s and general life. They literally do not know how they are going to cope,” she said, adding that a son would lose his job because he could not be taken to work anymore.
O’Neill was banned for 12 months, fined £40 and ordered to pay £34 victim surcharge.
