Inverness court fines electrician for drink-driving on way to Belladrum music festival
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
A trip to the Belladrum music festival was a costly one for an offshore electrician earning £3000 a month.
Police were carrying out random checks on motorists on the A862 at Inchmore just after 9am on July 30 this year and stopped 32-year-old Ross Hudson.
Fiscal depute Adele Gray told Inverness Sheriff Court: "They could smell alcohol off his breath and he gave a reading of 59mcg of alcohol when the legal limit is 22mcg."
Hudson admitted drink-driving and was fined £840 and banned from driving for a year.
However Sheriff Gary Aitken deemed Hudson, of Gordon Street, New Elgin, suitable for the drink-driver rehabilitation scheme, which he must fund himself.
If he successfully completes it, he will earn three months off his ban.
Sheriff Aitken told him: "This was a very silly thing to do. You were very clearly over the limit."
He suggested that Hudson should have bought a self testing kit to see if it was safe for him to be setting off in his car.