A teenager who marked Christmas Day by crashing his car then phoning police to tell them about it has been banned from driving for 16 months.
Callum Stewart celebrated his 18th birthday on December 24 then took the “foolish” decision to get behind the wheel at 2am while four times the drink-drive limit.
He crashed his Ford Fiesta into a ditch between Lhanbryde and Rothes.
The apprentice decorator then made an emergency call to the police – to say he was lost and needed help.
Officers used his mobile phone to pinpoint his location and arrived on the scene at 2.20am.
They discovered Stewart’s car on the B9013 Sheriffston-Inchberry road near the junction with the unclassified Clatternbriggs-Orbiston road.
Checks also revealed he had no valid MoT or insurance for the car.
The weather on the night was severe, and Elgin Sheriff Court heard yesterday that he had to be taken to Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin to be treated for “having a bit more than mild hypothermia”.
Fiscal Alison Wyllie told the court he was “lucky not to be injured”.
Stewart admitted driving while over the limit, and his agent, solicitor Debbie Wilson, told the court he was going to have to pay any fine in “very modest installments” because of his limited income.
Sheriff James Hendry told Stewart: “You were considerably over the limit, a danger to yourself and others and got yourself into a number of difficulties that night.
“You are a young man, and you accept you have made a very foolish decision to drink and drive with that amount of alcohol in your body.”
Sheriff Hendry fined Stewart, of 58 Glenesk Road, Lhanbryde, £133 and disqualified him from driving for 16 months.
