A former Ross County and Highland League footballer has been banned from the roads after crashing his car on the way home from a bar and seriously injuring a friend.
Steven Ross offered the man a lift in February of 2019, but crashed his car through a fence and overturned it.
He appeared for sentencing at Inverness Sheriff Court having previously pled guilty to a single charge of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
A previous hearing heard how Steven Ross’ car ended up on its roof after crashing into a fence and trees on the A832 west of Tore.
The 29-year-old – who made 25 appearances for Ross County between 2011 and 2015 and has also turned out for Brora, Buckie Thistle, Forres and Dumbarton – had been at a birthday party in the Vodka Revolution bar in Inverness and said he would give his friend a lift home to Tain.
Driver lost control and car overturned
She said: “A short distance later he lost control, his vehicle overturned and crashed into a fence and trees.
“The car ended up on its roof in a field. Other motorists stopped to assist.”
She added that his passenger suffered a collapsed lung, a fractured collar bone and other more minor injuries.
“He has since made a full recovery,” Ms Love told Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald.
At a sentencing hearing at Inverness Sheriff Court solicitor Rory Gowans, for Ross, who now works as a painter and decorator, said his client was “deeply remorseful that any of this happened”.
‘If he could turn the clock back he would’
He said: “If he could turn the clock back he would do exactly that.”
Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald told Ross, of New Street, Shandwick: “You have pled guilty to a very serious offence, you caused significant injury to your passenger, you are in fact lucky that it wasn’t worse given the nature of your behaviour and how you were driving on that day.”
She banned him from the roads for 32 months and placed him on a community payback order with a condition that he must complete 225 hours of unpaid work in the community.”