A five-times-the-limit delivery driver who swerved into oncoming traffic has been banned from the roads.
Courier Andrej Bartko was seen “staggering” from his van following the incident and was so unsteady on his feet he had to be helped into a police car.
Bartko, 46, appeared for sentencing at Inverness Sheriff Court having previously admitted charges of dangerous driving and drink-driving relating to the incident on November 11 of last year.
At a previous hearing, fiscal depute Emma MacEwan told the court that witnesses on Dingwall’s Tulloch Avenue encountered Bartko’s van on the wrong side of the road at around 8.45pm.
She said another vehicle had to take evasive action to avoid a head-on collision.
Following this close call, the other driver turned their vehicle around and followed Bartko and police were called.
The driver tailed Bartko to his home address in Fraser Road where he was seen staggering from the van.
Driver ‘staggered’ from vehicle
Police noted that Bartko smelled of alcohol, had glazed eyes and was unsteady on his feet.
Asked through an interpreter to confirm who had been driving, he said: “I was driving it.”
Bartko failed a roadside breath test and subsequent testing at Burnett Road Police Station revealed the level of alcohol in his breath to be 123 microgrammes per 100 millilitres – more than five times the legal limit of 22 microgrammes.
At an earlier hearing solicitor Matthew Berlow explained that his client had been drinking earlier in the day and had “foolishly” decided to take his van to do an errand.
He acknowledged the “very high reading” and said he suspected that it may be symptomatic of “some deeper rooted problem that Mr Bartko requires to address”.
He added that the married father-of-three “deeply regrets his actions”.
Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald banned Bartko from the roads for one year, after which he will have to sit and pass the extended driving test in order to get back behind the wheel.
She also ordered him to complete 200 hours of unpaid work in the community.