Court / Drink driver found asleep at the wheel

A DRINK driver who repeatedly weaved back and forth across the A971 road and encroached onto the opposing carriageway into oncoming traffic in September this year has been banned and fined a four figure sum.

Police officers found George Jamieson, of Sunnyside, Aith, at the Tumblin junction, slumped in the driver’s seat, asleep while the engine was still running.

At Lerwick Sheriff Court, the 37-year-old admitted charges of drink driving and driving dangerously between Tingwall Airport and the Tumblin junction on 8 September 2022.

Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie told the court that Jamieson had been seen in Lerwick drinking heavily in the afternoon of said day, before setting off in his van to the Westside where he lives.

The fiscal said other road users had become concerned with the manner Jamieson was driving and alerted the police.

When officers caught up with him, they found him deeply asleep at his wheel and had some difficulty waking him up.

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Defence solicitor William Mckay said that there was no “getting away from that this is a dreadful piece of driving” but asked the court to consider his client’s particular circumstances which may offer some explanation for his behaviour.

Referring to the Plymouth shooting in August last year in which six people died, the lawyer said some of the people involved in the incident were close family members.

This has been a “traumatic event for the family”, Mckay continued, and added that his client was seeking help to cope mentally.

The solicitor told the court that his client has lost his job as a store supervisor but was hoping to get back to work.

He added: “Whatever the difficulties, he shouldn’t have done what he did on that date.”

Sheriff Ian Cruickshank described what he had heard as a “bad example of dangerous driving which could have had fatal consequences” for Jamieson and other road users.

Fining him £1,600, Jamieson was also disqualified from driving for 16 months and told that he first has to pass the extended test of competence before allowed back on the roads.