A driver seen swerving towards oncoming traffic on a Workington road after taking a cocktail of drugs has been spared jail and handed a roads ban.
Police were alerted by a concerned member of the public to a Kia Rio being driven badly, all over the road, at around 3.45pm on May 2, which was a bank holiday. It was seen in the area of Workington Academy and there was a suspicion that the driver Thomas John Evans, 36, was under the influence of something.
Carlisle Crown Court heard how two police officers saw the Kia on Park End Road swerving across both lanes and towards oncoming traffic, said prosecutor Gerard Rogerson.
Evans, of John Street, Workington, and gave negative roadside and drug wipe tests. But police remained concerned and sent a sample of Evans’s blood to a forensic scientist, who found there had been non-recent use of diazepam but recent consumption of both cocaine and dihydrocodeine.
These were not present at illegal driving levels. But Mr Rogerson said: “It would appear it was the combination of different types of drugs in his system that has produced the effect upon Mr Evans and his manner of driving.”
Evans admitted a charge of driving while unfit through drugs. That put him in breach of a suspended prison sentence imposed last October, for threatening a woman with a knife.
Recorder Peter Atherton concluded it would be unjust to activate the previously imposed prison term having heard the defendant was motivated to change. Instead he extended its suspension period from 18 to 24 months, and imposed probation service rehabilitation days.
For his motoring offence, Evans was given a 12-month community order with a drug rehabilitation requirement, and must serve an 18-month driving ban.
