North-east man crashed car, punched driver and bit cop

A north-east man who crashed a car into another vehicle before punching the driver and biting a cop has been spared jail.

Conor McKenzie, 18, was driving a Vauxhall Corsa on Newtonhill Road when other drivers noticed him speeding, overtaking other vehicles and driving on the wrong side of the road at 9.30am on April 1 this year.

He then smashed into a Volkswagen Golf. The force of the collision caused the Corsa to “bounce off a garden wall” and come to rest in a driveway, depute fiscal Christie Ward told Aberdeen Sheriff Court.

McKenzie then got out of the vehicle, confronted the driver and punched him in the face, causing his mouth to bleed.

McKenzie returned home and told his parents: “You need to take me to the police station so I can make a confession.”

While at Great Northern Road police office, he refused to give a breath test to establish if he was over the legal alcohol limit and he bit one officer and tried to bite another.

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Sheriff Morag McLaughlin was told McKenzie’s mum had caught him drinking whisky in his bedroom earlier that morning, and saw him leave the property before getting into a car and driving off.

Defence agent Stuart Murray said: “He is embarrassed and mortified by his behaviour, which happened at a time when he was experiencing family and personal problems.”

McKenzie, whose address was given in court as St Peter’s Road, Newtonhill, had previously pled guilty to dangerous driving, assaulting a man and two police officers and failing to provide samples of breath for analysis.

Sheriff McLaughlin said: “This is a serious matter – it is extremely serious. It is to your credit that you admitted your involvement immediately. You have a lack of a record and a lack of pattern in offending.”

She banned McKenzie from driving for a year and ordered him to do 225 hours of unpaid work as part of an 18-month community payback order with supervision.