FRIDAY the 13th proved an unlucky day for a lorry driver - and part of York's heritage.

First Brian Russell got his 12-foot vehicle stuck under the inner archway of Walmgate Bar, despite noticing a sign warning that its maximum headroom was nine-and-a-half feet, magistrates heard.

Then police called to deal with the accident spotted irregularities on the vehicle's tachograph.

It revealed Russell had been driving too long on three days earlier the same week.

Russell, 30, of Central Square, Brigg, pleaded guilty to four charges of driving more than four hours without a 45-minute break, one of driving for more than ten hours in a day, and driving without due care and attention at Walmgate Bar on Friday, July 13.

He told magistrates he had got three penalty points for a speeding offence in the same lorry the week before the accident.

Magistrates fined him £400 with £55 costs, added five penalty points, and told him to surrender his driving licence to them within 14 days or it would be revoked. He did not have it with him at court. Russell said he was driving long hours because he had just got a new job and was trying to impress his boss.

As he approached Walmgate Bar, he saw the warning sign, but thought the Bar looked bigger than it was and drove towards it.

"I thought when I went through the first bar I would be all right to go through the second, and obviously I was not," he said.

He said he was totally inexperienced at driving the lorry and with tachograph protocol, though he knew he should have taken some breaks.

Immediately after the accident, his boss had stopped him driving the lorry. Martin Butterworth, prosecuting, said the tachograph sheet had no driver's name on it and Russell should have reported that its clock was 70 minutes slow. The tachograph revealed that he had driven five hours and seven minutes on July 9, five hours and 36 minutes, followed by five hours and 38 minutes on July 11 and five hours and 26 minutes on July 12. On each occasion, he had failed to take the statutory 45-minute break for every four hours at the wheel and on July 11 he had exceeded the maximum ten hours driving allowed in a single day.

* Police and council workmen let down the lorry's tyres to help free the vehicle. Witnesses saw that the lorry's body shell was slightly twisted. No details of damage to the Bar or the lorry were given in court.

Updated: 14:44 Thursday, January 10, 2002