News / Fined and banned for driving car with ‘absolutely no brakes’
A TWENTY seven year old who admitted driving a non-roadworthy car without insurance or a licence last summer has been fined and banned from obtaining a licence.
Hal Francis McKay, whose address was given as Blackness Road, Dundee, admitted the three offences, which took place on the A968 road at Toft Ferry Terminal on 25 June last year, when he appeared at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Wednesday.
Procurator fiscal Keith Adam said officers were tipped off that the vehicle was being driven without insurance on the island of Yell and met McKay at the ferry terminal on Shetland’s mainland to find he was also not accompanied by a qualified driver or displaying ‘L’ plates.
The fiscal said police also discovered that the vehicle had “absolutely no brakes and the brake pedals went straight to the floor”, which was “unsafe to say the least”.
Defence agent Tommy Allan said his client was unemployed and receiving jobseekers’ allowance. He also has two children, aged 11 and six, and was facing “difficult financial circumstances”.
At the time of the incident he was working on a salmon farm in Yell, where an MOT certificate and a licence were not required.
His insurance had expired the day before and he was travelling – at slow speeds – to the mainland to sell the vehicle, which has since been crushed, to someone in Mossbank.
“It was a specific journey for a specific purpose,” Allan explained, adding his client had ended up in custody before appearing under a warrant due to a misunderstanding over his home address.
Sheriff Arnold Duncan disqualified McKay from holding or obtaining a licence for 12 months, and fined him a total of £375. He also imposed six penalty points.
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