News / Drug driver almost struck police officer
A RECOVERING heroin addict who almost hit an off duty police officer while driving after taking drugs has been banned from the road for four years and ordered to carry out unpaid work.
On Thursday Lerwick Sheriff Court heard how witnesses found 37 year old Craig Menzies slumped in his seat with his head down after trying to park his car outside Sound primary school on 7 May while the children were leaving for the day.
Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie said that after seeing him driving on the wrong side of Lerwick’s Oversund Road, and then ending up on the grass verge after mounting the pavement, concerned parents quickly came to the conclusion he was heavily under the influence of drugs.
Just three weeks later on 27 May an off duty policeman walking his dog had a lucky escape when he was walking his dog beside the Tesco roundabout in Lerwick.
After failing to take the roundabout properly, Menzies crossed the central reservation and mounted the kerb narrowly missing the officer, before colliding with a wall.
“He came very close indeed to being struck,” the fiscal said.
In court Menzies, of Flat 1, The Old School, Cunningsburgh, admitted two counts of driving while unfit through drugs and failing to stop after an accident.
Mackenzie said it was “very alarming” that Menzies told social workers preparing a background report that he thought he had been fit to drive at the time.
“It’s difficult to convey how much of a danger to the public he is when he’s behind the wheel of a car,” he said.
Defence agent Tommy Allan said it appeared that his client had been “in denial” about the extent of his problems with drugs at the time of the incidents, when he was struggling with his drug addiction.
However since then he had been helped by the local drugs and alcohol agency, was on a prescription to help him come off heroin and had got a job in a fish factory.
Sheriff Philip Mann told Menzies this was “very, very serious offending” that deserved a prison sentence.
However he said public safety would be better served if Menzies was placed under supervision for one year, during which time he must carry out the maximum 300 hours of unpaid work in the community.
As he already has a previous conviction for drink driving from 13 years ago, Menzies will not be allowed to drive a car until October 2018.
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