A MAN who admitted being drunk in charge of a vehicle on a main road near Helensburgh has been banned from driving for a year.

Marc Beattie supplied a breath sample to police with a reading of 129 microgrammes of alcohol in 100ml of blood last year – almost six times the driving limit of 22 microgrammes.

He was originally charged with driving a vehicle while over the limit on the A817 Haul Road between Garelochhead and Luss, near the junction with the A82, on May 26, 2018.

But prosecutors accepted his plea of guilty to the less serious charge of being drunk in charge of a vehicle.

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Sentence had been deferred until Friday for a background report from social workers after the 36-year-old, listed in court papers as a resident of Mitchellknowe in Biggar, Lanarkshire, admitted the charge under section 5 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.

Scott Adair, defending, told Dumbarton Sheriff Court that police had discovered the vehicle down a side road with Beattie asleep in the back seat.

Mr Adair told Sheriff William Gallacher: “Issues he has had in the past have perhaps led to some of his difficulties with alcohol.

“While he told the social worker he had no intention of driving, the difficulty with that is it was ultimately what he was going to do when he woke up.”

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Sheriff Gallacher told Beattie: “Unquestionably, had you been before me in relation to the original charge, given such an outrageous level of alcohol I don’t think I would have had any option but to send you to custody.

“However, that’s not the charge, and I can therefore deal with it in a different light.”

Beattie was handed a community payback order which will see him under the supervision of social workers in South Lanarkshire until September 2020, and ordered to take part in a group work programme for road traffic offenders in the area.

In addition to the 12-month disqualification he was also handed a four-month home detention curfew.