A motorist exposed as a drug driver by police who stopped his vehicle on the A66 after it was shut during Storm Arwen has been fined and banned from the road.
Lewis Kelly, 21, was travelling eastbound on the Trans-Pennine route on November 27 last year at a time when it was badly affected by high winds and left other drivers stranded in six-foot snowdrifts.
“The road was closed,” prosecutor George Shelley told Carlisle magistrates’ court this morning. “Officers have stopped a Volkswagen Caddy van in order to speak with the driver.”
That was Kelly, close to Brougham, near Penrith. “He put the side window down to speak to an officer, who noted a strong smell of cannabis from inside the vehicle. He was directed to pull over,” said Mr Shelley.
Kelly failed a roadside drug wipe test, was arrested and after providing a blood specimen was found to be over the legal limit for the main psychoactive ingredient of cannabis.
He admitted a drug-driving charge in court and was said to be a man of previous good character.
Ant Wilson, defending, said Kelly, of Hazel Bank, Plains, Airdrie, was a recreational cannabis user who had smoked the drug the previous night. There was no suggestion of bad driving or any other aggravating features of the offence at the time, said Mr Wilson.
Kelly, who was employed in the construction industry and had been working on the day his crime came to light, was fined £400. He was also banned from driving for 12 months.
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