A drink-driver who terrorised an Inverness motorist after mistaking her for his wife in Poland has been jailed for 28 months.
Slawomir Stiller drove his van on the wrong side of the A9 and even rammed the terrified woman’s car in an incident Sheriff Sara Matheson described as “one of the worst courses of driving coupled with abusive conduct that I can recall”.
Other drivers were forced to swap lanes to avoid Stiller’s van as he mounted verges and drove straight at them, Inverness Sheriff Court was told.
The 49-year-old – who was six-times the drink-driving limit – was shouting about “his wife” as he targeted a female driver, who made distressed calls to her own husband and police during the disturbing incident.
Stiller was eventually arrested after he blocked the woman in and rammed her car on the Kessock Bridge, before trying her doors and punching her vehicle.
Sentence had previously been deferred for a background report after he pleaded guilty to charges that included drink-driving, dangerous driving, assault by driving his light goods vehicle into the woman’s car and threatening behaviour.
Passing sentence today, Sheriff Sara Matheson told Stiller: “The fact you did not kill or seriously injure members of the public is a matter of pure luck.”
She told Stiller she would have jailed him for longer but for the restrictions placed on her sentencing by Parliament, describing them as “inappropriately low in your case”.
However, she imposed the maximum available to her but gave him a discount due to his early plea of guilty to the charges.
He was also disqualified from driving for nine years and two months.
Inverness Sheriff Court previously heard how Stiller is a professional delivery driver who carries goods between Poland and Scotland.
Fiscal depute Emily Hood told the court it was around 6.30pm on May 8 of this year when a woman driving on the dual carriageway south of the Tore roundabout noticed Stiller’s van “driving straight towards her, flashing its main beam”.
She pulled into a layby to call her husband and police, at which point Stiller travelled anti-clockwise around the Tore roundabout before continuing in the wrong carriageway.
Police Scotland received 12 999 calls from concerned members of the public throughout the incident, which was caught on dashcam.
Boxed in victim on Kessock Bridge
Ms Hood told the court: “Police units were sent to set up a rolling roadblock to slow the panel and prevent a potentially fatal crash from happening.”
The woman – who Stiller had mistakenly thought was his wife in Poland – moved to another layby but was again targeted by Stiller, who approached with his hazard lights on and then drove in front of her to try to prevent her from leaving.
“She managed to drive around him,” the fiscal depute said.
But when she was slowed by a lorry on the Kessock Bridge Stiller overtook her and applied his brakes.
“He has then begun to reverse his vehicle into the front of the witness,” Ms Hood said.
Stiller parked his van and started trying to pull open the woman’s driver’s side door whilst shouting, before returning to his vehicle and moving it diagonally across both lanes.
He then got out again and began to punch the woman’s door.
Police attended and found the witness in extreme distress,” said Ms Hood.
‘A reckless disregard for the safety of other motorists’
Stiller, who appeared “unsteady on his feet” and “agitated” was “ranting” towards the woman who he “appeared to believe was his wife”.
He was detained and officers noted a bottle of whisky and medication inside his vehicle.
Alison McKenzie, Procurator Fiscal for Grampian, Highlands and the Islands, said: “Slawomir Stiller showed a reckless disregard for the safety of other motorists.
“It is entirely possible that his conduct could have resulted in a fatal incident.”
