Drunk HGV driver fails to sway court in sentence appeal

A“reckless” lorry drink-driver who swerved between lanes on the A90 while more than four times the limit has lost an appeal against his jail sentence.

Timothy Humphreys was locked up for six months and also banned from driving for three years and seven months in January.

He was witnessed struggling to control the HGV he was driving between Stracathro and Stonehaven during the evening of November 21 last year.

His positive breath test read 98 microgrammes of alcohol per 100ml of breath, when the legal limit is just 22.

At Aberdeen Sheriff Court, Humphreys pleaded guilty to two charges of dangerous driving and driving under the influence of alcohol.

And the court also heard he had previous drinkdriving convictions.

The sheriff was told that Humphreys turned to drink to cope with the loss of his 15-year-old son, Kevin, to leukaemia on Christmas Day 2001.

The grieving dad went to the Sheriff Appeal Court to challenge his punishment, claiming alternatives to a prison sentence should have been considered by Sheriff Graeme Buchanan, who sentenced him.

His legal team suggested that a community-based penalty, such as unpaid work, would have been more suitable.

Humphreys’ arguments were considered by Sheriff Principal Mhairi Stephen QC and Appeal Sheriff Thomas McCartney.

In proceedings it emerged that Humphreys – a convicted burglar – had admitted a drink-driving offence in 2010 at Stonehaven Sheriff Court.

That incident resulted in a fine and disqualification from driving for 16 months.

And he also had been prosecuted and convicted of other road traffic offences in the Justice of the Peace Court in Aberdeen.

In her judgment, Sheriff Principal Stephen refused the appeal.

She found that Humphreys demonstrated a “high degree of negligence and culpability” in his decision to drive an articulated heavy goods vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.

And she said: “In this case the sheriff made it clear that the gravity of the offending required a custodial term.

“In these circumstances we do not consider that the sheriff erred.”

Sheriff Principal Stephen concluded: “The appellant showed a reckless disregard for the actual and potential danger of driving an HGV while intoxicated.

“In doing so he had imperilled the safety of other road users.

“The fact that there was no accident or collision does not diminish the danger which the appellant (Humphreys) posed to other motorists and their passengers on a busy trunk road.”

The sheriff made it clear the offending required a jail term

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