‘Playing the fool’ at police station costs engineer

A MAN from Hamilton who drunkenly refused to give breath samples at Lerwick Police Station after being spotted by police getting into his van has been banned from the road for 14 months.

Gordon Mather, 32, of Leys Park, was also fined £450 after he admitted at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Tuesday to failing to provide two specimens of breath at the station without reasonable excuse on 17 June after being seen driving on the town’s Commercial Street.

Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie said police stopped him at around 3am after seeing him enter his vehicle and move off.

He was arrested and taken to the police station, but he was “stupidly playing the fool” with the procedure and embarked on a course of “silly drunken efforts not to provide the sample”.

Defence agent Tommy Allan said his client was in Shetland working as a heating engineer at the time and was struggling to cope with being away from his partner.

On the night in question he had too much to drink and “stupidly entered his works van”, the solicitor said.

Allan said the “completely out of character” behaviour would see him lose his job if he was disqualified.

Sheriff Philip Mann said failing to provide samples meant police were unable to know how much over the alcohol limit people were.

But he said a preliminary roadside screening test taken before Mather was taken to the station showed that he was “clearly over the limit”.