‘I have had a few beers’ - A96 drink-driver tells police
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A former Inverness man now living in Carlisle reached the end of the road when he admitted his third drink-drive conviction.
Sheriff Sara Matheson jailed 28-year-old Anthony Rudman, previously of Croy Road, Tornagrain for a total of seven months and banned him from driving for the next four years.
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Inverness Sheriff Court heard that Rudman had admitted dangerous driving and crashing his car and while two-and-a-half times the legal drink-drive limit.
His reading was 51mcgs of alcohol when the legal limit is 22mcgs.
Sheriff Matheson told him: "This was a dangerous course of driving with the background of two recent previous convictions for drink driving.
"The A96 is a notorious road and the standard of your driving was appalling."
Fiscal depute Pauline Gair told the court that Rudman was driving towards Nairn on the evening of October 7, 2023.
"He had a passenger in the car and passed multiple cars at excessive speed,” she said. “It was extremely wet conditions with heavy rain involved and he was involved in a collision.
"It was thought he had aqua-planed and hit another vehicle on the opposite carriageway.
"But another witness said he had taken the corner too fast and hit a kerb. He admitted to police 'I have had a few beers'. The other motorist suffered minor injuries."
Defending, Laura-Jane McFarlane told the court: "He knows the difficult position he is in as this is his third drink-driving conviction and how dangerous his driving was. The injuries could have been more excessive.”
