A man has been banned for 12 years after getting behind the wheel in Peterhead town centre.
Andrejs Ivanovs told police he drove the car after his friend crashed into a parked vehicle in the Broad Street car park and ran away.
But the 51-year-old, who had been drinking earlier that day, had no insurance and was disqualified when he made the decision to move the vehicle.
When police traced him, they found him in his bed “heavily intoxicated”.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard he refused to provide a breath test, although he told officers he had drunk half a bottle of whisky to calm his nerves after the crash on May 9.
Defence solicitor Gail Goodfellow said her client, a manual labourer had been with another man to see about getting his wife’s car repaired..
She said Ivanovs maintained the man had accidentally crashed it into a parked car and then “got out of the car and ran off”.
Ms Goodfellow said although Ivanovs had “no intention of driving, he very much regrettably decided to drive the car to a safe space”.
When officers took him to the station at Kittybrewster in Aberdeen, he refused to gave a breath specimen without a “reasonable excuse”, the court heard.
Ivanos, who moved to Peterhead from Latvia in 2005, has previous convictions of a similar nature from 2007 and 2017.
Sheriff Philip Mann branded him a “high risk to the public” and said he had not learnt his previous lesson.
He disqualified him for 12 years and jailed him for 12 months.
Sheriff Mann said: “The purpose of road traffic legislation is to protect the public and there can be no doubt that persons who drive while disqualified and who are not prepared to have their ability to drive checked pose a high risk to the public.”
