A LEARNER driver has been banned from the roads for 18 months because he had a cocktail of drugs inside him as he drove along the York Outer Ring Road.

Nigel Stuart Flint, 44, was also uninsured and didn’t have a qualified supervisor for his journey on May 10, York magistrates heard.

He reacted angrily as they disqualified him from driving for 18 months and stormed out of the courtroom.

Flint, of Rudstone House, Penley Grove Road, The Groves, York, pleaded guilty to drug driving, driving without insurance and driving other than in accordance with his licence.

In addition to the driving ban, he was fined £100 with a £30 surcharge. Magistrates did not order Flint, who has a disability, to pay prosecution costs because he lives on benefits.

Flint has previous convictions for drugs and drug-related offences, but none for drink or drug impaired driving.

Martin Butterworth, prosecuting, said police stopped him near the B1224 Wetherby Road roundabout on the A1237 to do a drugs search. They realised he was high on drugs and gave him a roadside drugs test which he failed.

Scientific tests revealed he had 3.4 times the allowable amount of cocaine in his body, as well as heroin and an illegal amount of a prescription Class C drug.

Mr Butterworth said although the drug levels were high, they had not obviously affected Flint’s driving.

Mark Partridge, defending, said Flint had 23 metal plates in his legs and would have to walk on crutches for the rest of his life. He had no explanation for the heroin and cocaine, but had been taking the prescription drug, which was a painkiller and sleeping tablet, to cope with his medical problems.

Flint had had car-related convictions in the past, but had put that behind him and had been on the road legally for the first time in his life when he got himself a moped so he could move around easily.

The owner of the car he had been in when he had been stopped had told him he was insured to drive it and he had, wrongly, understood that the owner could supervise a learner driver.