A driver who overtook police before rounding a bend on the wrong side of the road was under the influence of cocaine and depressed after losing family members to Covid.
Catriona Maclean, 39, of Jenkins Park, Fort Augustus, made the risky manoeuvre in her VW Golf near Invermoriston on November 28 2020, but was spotted and pulled over by police, Inverness Sheriff Court heard.
Fiscal depute Karen Poke explained that, when stopped, Maclean’s behaviour was “erratic” and she appeared “fidgety and distressed”.
She told the court: “She accepted that her actions were wrong and apologised to the officers”.
They then decided to carry out roadside drug testing, which returned a positive result for cocaine, with subsequent blood test readings 14 times the legal limit for driving.
Solicitor Roger Webb explained his client, who appeared for sentencing having previously admitted the drug driving charge, had been feeling anxious and depressed at the time of the incident.
He said her uncle and father in law had both died of covid and her mother in law was hospitalised at the same time.
‘You need some of this’
She travelled to Inverness to visit a friend who offered her cocaine telling her: “You need some of this.”
Maclean took the drug but later received a phone call from her 16-year-old son to say he was unwell, causing her to rush home.
He added that it was his client’s first offence and he did not expect her to appear before the court again.
Sheriff David Sutherland disqualified Maclean from driving for 12 months and fined her £420.