A five-times-the-limit drink-driver was caught out when he struggled to locate his petrol cap at a filling station, a court has heard.
Staff at the Gulf filling station in Nairn approached Jefferson Banks when they noticed he was having an issue fuelling up.
When they smelled alcohol on him, they alerted police, who later discovered Banks had a breath alcohol reading of 110 microgrammes per 100 millilitres – the legal limit being 22.
Banks, 64, appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court to admit a single charge of drink-driving in relation to the incident on September 24 last year.
Fiscal depute Adelle Gray told the court that it was around noon when staff at the filling station on Inverness Road, Nairn, watched Bank’s Peugeot car pull onto the forecourt.
Banks got out of the vehicle, but “struggled to determined which side his petrol cap was on”.
Driver failed breath test
A staff member went to speak to him but became concerned that he may be drunk as she could smell alcohol on him.
Banks was instructed to wait away from his vehicle and police were contacted.
After the driver failed a breath test he was taken to the police station, where further testing revealed him to be five times the legal drink drive limit.
It was further discovered that he had no valid insurance.
Solicitor Clare Russell, for Banks, told the court her client had “fallen back into old difficulties with alcohol” at the time of the offence and “on this particular occasion made the extremely foolish decision to get behind the wheel of his vehicle”.
She added: “He accepts that there was no excuse for it.”
Sheriff Frazer told Banks, of Gollanfield: “Your reading is a high one and you have an analogous conviction, albeit of some age
”The court will deal with you once we get a report.”
The case was adjourned for the production of a presentencing report until next month and Banks was disqualified from driving in the meantime. The length of disqualification will be determined at sentencing.