A driver caught texting behind the wheel told police they “should have better things to do” because he believed the crime “wasn’t that serious”.
Owen Rankine was spotted by cops texting on his phone in the city centre as he was swerving and “making sudden corrections”.
Officers pulled their car up beside him on Wellington Road and Clerkhill Road and saw him tapping and typing on the phone screen, Aberdeen Sheriff Court was told.
Fiscal depute David Ballock said police pulled over his grey Vauxhall Vivaro van on August 12, last year and the 22-year-old told them he wasn’t committing a serious offence.
Tried to play down offence
“He was stopped and he identified himself as the driver and admitted that he was using a mobile phone,” the fiscal said. “He turned down the fine offered.
“He said ‘you should have better things to do, the offence is not that serious’ before aguing ‘nobody else was on the road’.
He claimed he was “trying to sort things out” in relation to his ex-partner and his child over whom he shares custody.
Rankine turned down the offer of an on-the-spot penalty of three points and a £100 fine.
Defence agent Alex Burn said Rankine was texting to arrange shared custody of his child.
“He was trying to deal with matters at the time, stupidly while he was driving,” he said.
“He was offered an on-the-spot £100 fine and three points but because of what was going on in his personal life with his child and former partner he said no.
Court fine cost him more
“The penalty for this is six points not three so he should’ve perhaps taken that opportunity.”
An accumulation of other points saw Rankine banned from the road that same month.
Rankine, of Middlemuir Place, Bucksburn, admitted a charge of driving while using a handheld mobile telephone.
He’s currently serving a supervision and curfew order after he threatened a car full of men with a knife before attacking and stamping on the head of an innocent passer-by in Aberdeen city centre.
Sheriff Morag McLaughlin fined him £145.
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