A serial drink driver has been handed a 30-year ban along after he was caught behind the wheel while more than three times the limit.
Vladimirs Rudoks – who has been disqualified on five previous occasions and will be 86 when the latest ban runs out – was also jailed for eight months after the sheriff said there was “no alternative” given his appalling record.
The 56-year-old construction worker has previously been disqualified in 2011, 2012, 2017, 2018 and 2020.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard that when Rudoks was stopped by police outside Tesco in Inverurie on September 24 this year he gave a breathalyser reading of 74 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 22.
Rudoks was already subject to a 20-year ban from last year
He admitted three charges of driving while disqualified, driving while under the influence of alcohol and driving without insurance.
Rudoks was locked up for nine months at the end of last year after being caught drink driving.
On that occasion, he was nearly four times the legal limit and picked up a 20-year ban.
In a report carried out by the social work department, the Latvian national was described as displaying an “ambivalence” towards getting treatment for his alcohol problems.
It would have been a 40-year ban had he not pleaded guilty
Rudoks’ defence agent, Andrew Ormiston, told the court: “He realises that the report could not be described as a good one but he is asking that – despite his record of offending – for one last chance and liberation.
“He recognises that his behaviour is underpinned by his alcohol consumption.
“The report states that he is ambivalent about getting treatment for his alcohol issues, but he has told me today that he now wants to tackle the problem.
“The thrust of my argument is that, while he finds himself in a precarious situation, there are some positive aspects to the report which may support a non-custodial sentence.”
Sheriff Philip Mann told Rudoks: “It seems to me that I really have no alternative with regard to your record and the serious nature of your offending but to send you to custody again.
“It would have been a 40-year ban had you not pleaded guilty to these offences.”
He sentenced Rudoks, of Crichie Circle, Port Elphinstone, Inverurie, to eight months and two weeks behind bars and disqualified him from driving for 30 years, four months and one week.
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