An Inverness teenager was sent to detention for nine months after admitting driving dangerously on a country road, overturning his car and seriously injuring two teenage girls.
It was the disqualified driver’s fourth drink-drive offence within a year and Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald told him: “You were fortunate that more serious injuries were not sustained.”
Inverness Sheriff Court was told that the teen, who cannot be named, was on bail at the time of the incident for two similar charges.
He appeared for sentence after previously pleading guilty to the road traffic offences which included driving with excess alcohol.
The court was told he was more than twice the legal drink-drive limit when he was breathalysed by police in hospital shortly after the crash outside Nairn, near Little Kildrummie, on December 10 last year.
However he admitted a lesser reading of 31mcgs, just above the 22mcgs limit, provided two hours after the first test.
The two injured girls, aged 17 and 14 suffered fractured vertebrae and ribs.
Defence solicitor advocate Shahid Latif said that his client was genuinely remorseful and wanted to apologise to the casualties.
Mr Latif added that a family bereavement when he was young had had an effect, adding: “This led to the long fuse of disintegration and a descent into drugs and alcohol to deal with his anxiety.”
His sentence was backdated to February 10 when he was remanded in custody and he was also disqualified from driving for three years and two months.