Council JCB driver caught over the limit

An off-duty police officer who was in the shop, noticed his behaviour, could smell the alcohol and decided he should not be driving.

Other officers were summoned and they traced the JCB Airmaster parked at roadworks in Liberton Brae, Edinburgh.

At the city’s Sheriff Court today, 28-year old Alan Wilson of Double Hedges Road, Edinburgh, was fined £600 and disqualified from driving for two years after pleading guilty to driving the JCB with 78 microgrammes of alcohol in his breath when the legal limit is 35.

Fiscal Depute, Malcolm Stewart, told Sheriff Katherine Mackie the incident had occurred at about ten to eight in the morning last Friday, August 3, and that Wilson had a previous conviction for drink driving in 2009.

Defence solicitor, Emma Gibson, said Wilson was employed by Edinburgh City Council roads department and would almost certainly lose his job. He had been drinking lager with friends the night before and had gone to bed about midnight. When he got up for work in the morning he had breakfast and thought the alcohol would be out of his system.

The lawyer added that Wilson had only had his licence back for a short period of time after the previous conviction. He had been disqualified for 32 months in 2009, but that had been reduced to 24 months after he passed the drink drivers’ education programme.

Sheriff Mackie commented: “Obviously that had no effect”.