Granddad was over drug-drive limit, court told

Published: 10:51, 06 December 2016

A LOWER Quinton man has been banned from driving and fined after driving his granddaughter to school while ten times over the drug-drive limit.

Mark Caines, of St Swithin’s Drive, was arrested on Wednesday, 28th September, after being followed for a short time by police who initially thought he was speeding.

But when he was pulled over his saliva tested positive for cannabis and cocaine and a later blood test revealed that while he was under the legal limit for cannabis and cocaine, the level of Benzoylecgonine, produced by the metabolism of cocaine, in his system was over ten times the legal limit at 587 microgrammes per litre of blood.

The legal limit is 50 microgrammes per litre of blood. Caines appeared at Warwickshire Magistrates’ Court on Monday, 14th November, when he was banned from driving for 15 months and ordered to pay £285 of costs and fines.

PC Craig Purcell, of the Shipston Safer Neighbourhood Team, said this week: “At the time I stopped Caines he was driving his young granddaughter to school and on his way to pick up another child.

“It was his initial speed through Lower Quinton that drew my attention to his vehicle, followed by a period of unsteady driving along the Campden Road during rush hour. It’s already hard enough to understand why somebody would get behind the wheel of a car having consumed cocaine but add rush hour traffic and children into the mix and I am truly at a loss for words.

“I can only hope that our alcohol and drug-related arrests are being noticed across the Shipston policing area to act as a deterrent to others.”