A “reckless” drink-driving lorry driver who swerved between lanes on the A90 while more than four times the limit has lost an appeal against his jail sentence.
Timothy Humphreys was locked up for six months and also banned from driving for three years and seven months in January.
He was witnessed struggling to control the HGV he was driving between Stracathro and Stonehaven during the evening of November 21 last year.
His positive breath test read 98 microgrammes of alcohol per 100ml of breath, when the legal limit is just 22.
At Aberdeen Sheriff Court, Humphreys pleaded guilty to two charges of dangerous driving and driving under the influence of alcohol.
Challenging his punishment
And the court also heard he had previous drink-driving convictions.
The sheriff was told that Humphreys turned to drink to cope with the loss of his 15-year-old son Kevin to leukaemia on Christmas Day 2001.
The grieving dad went to the Sheriff Appeal Court to challenge his punishment, claiming alternatives to a prison sentence should have been considered by Sheriff Graeme Buchanan, who sentenced him.
His legal team suggested that a community-based penalty, such as unpaid work, would have been more suitable.
Humphreys’ arguments were considered by Sheriff Principal Mhairi Stephen QC and Appeal Sheriff Thomas McCartney.
Previous drink-driving convictions
During proceedings, it emerged that Humphreys – a convicted burglar – had previously admitted a drink-driving offence in 2010 at Stonehaven Sheriff Court.
It resulted in a fine and disqualification from driving for 16 months.
And he also had been prosecuted and convicted of other road traffic offences in the Justice of the Peace Court in Aberdeen.
In her judgment, Sheriff Principal Mhairi Stephen QC refused the appeal.
She found that Humphreys demonstrated a “high degree of negligence and culpability” in his decision to drive an articulated heavy goods vehicle whilst under the influence of alcohol.
‘Reckless disregard for safety’
And she said: “In this case the sheriff made it clear that the gravity of the offending required a custodial term.
“In these circumstances we do not consider that the sheriff erred.”
Sheriff Principal Stephen QC concluded: “The appellant showed a reckless disregard for the actual and potential danger of driving an HGV whilst intoxicated.
“In doing so he had imperilled the safety of other road users.
“The fact that there was no accident or collision does not diminish the danger which the appellant [Humphreys] posed to other motorists and their passengers on a busy trunk road.”
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