“Salutary lesson” about drug-driving for North Elkington man

Police spoke to North Elkington 21-year-old Jake Mobley after he’d pulled into a fuel station in Bolingbroke Road, Louth.

“The officer noticed that the rider smelt strongly of cannabis,” prosecutor Shelley Wilson told Boston magistrates on Wednesday (January 25).

“The registration mark belonged to a Land Rover Freelander.

“The bike was registered to Mr Mobley but had no insurance and the MOT had expired.

“He had a small quantity of cannabis on him.”

After failing a drug wipe, the defendant, who was living in Edinburgh Road, Brookenby at the time, was arrested.

He later gave a reading of 5.6 micrograms of a cannabis derivative per litre of blood in his system – the legal limit being two.

He pleaded guilty to drug-driving, no insurance and MOT offences on September 26 last year.

“Police obviously haven’t decided to do anything about the fact he was driving under false plates at the time,” said Miss Wilson.

Phillipa Chatterton, mitigating, said: “He’s been honest in saying he wasn’t aware of drug-driving laws so clearly this has been a salutary lesson to learn.

“Having learned about them, he is no longer using illicit substances.”

The solicitor added that the MOT and insurance had run out in March and Mobley couldn’t afford then to renew them.

He was banned for 12 months, fined £120 each for drug-driving and the insurance offence and was ordered to pay £181 in costs and victim surcharge.