A drink-driver who was three times the limit has been banned from the roads for a year.
Thomas Gordon, 41, had identified himself as the driver after police attended an incident on the A836 at Bonar Bridge.
Subsequent testing showed his breath alcohol level to be 68 microgrammes per 100ml of breath, more than three times the legal limit of 22 microgrammes.
Gordon appeared at Tain Sheriff Court to admit a single charge of drink driving on March 4 of this year.
Fiscal depute Pauline Gair said: “Police were called to the locus as the result of a matter not before the court.
“The accused identified himself as having been the driver of the vehicle.”
Drink-driver was three times the limit
A roadside breath test proved positive and later testing provided a reading of 68 microgrammes per 100 millilitres of breath, the legal limit being 22 microgrammes.
Solicitor Ken Ferguson, for Gordon, said: “He is aware that he will be disqualified, that the reading is a high reading.”
He told Sheriff Gary Aitken that the self-employed stone mason regularly gave lifts to his mother who was suffering from “failing health” as well as to someone he works alongside.
“This is going to affect those other people, my client is acutely aware of that and it is because of his stupidity.”
Sheriff Aitken fined Gordon, of Ardgay, £520 and disqualifed him from driving for 12 months, with the option of taking a self-funded drink driver rehabilitation course that would reduce the length of the ban by 12 weeks.
