Ayr driving instructors car stolen by drunk grandson

Mar 5 2010 by Lisa Boyle, Ayrshire Post (main ed)

A DRIVING instructor’s car was stolen by his drunk grandson after a family fall-out.

Learner driver Steven McLaughlin was more than three times the legal limit when he took the car from Ayr’s Mossgiel Road.

Now the 19-year-old – who had been getting lessons from his grandfather – has been banned from the road for three years.

And he narrowly avoided a jail sentence when he appeared at Ayr Sheriff Court this week.

McLaughlin earlier pleaded guilty to drink-driving, taking a car without the owner’s consent, and driving with a provisional licence on January 3 this year.

Depute fiscal Maureen Mullan told Sheriff John Montgomery that police received an anonymous call about the driving instructor’s car being driven erratically.

Soon after, police saw the car parked in it’s driveway.

They knew it had been driven recently because there was heat coming from the engine and there was no frost on the windscreen despite freezing conditions.

Police spotted McLaughlin nearby and asked him about the car, he admitted driving it.

They could smell alcohol from him and noticed that his eyes were glazed and his speech slurred.

When he took a breath test, McLaughlin was found to be more than three times the legal limit.

His defence lawyer, Tony Currie, said: “He had been at a festive family party. There had been something of a fall-out between him and his father and he decided to leave to meet his friends.

“He drove out of his street and into another street. One of his friends, in a much more reasonable frame of mind, persuaded him to take the car back.”

Mr Currie went on to say that the vehicle has all the appropriate markings a driving instructor’s car would have.

He added: “It was effectively a vehicle he was learning to drive in.”

Sheriff Montgomery ordered McLaughlin, of Ayr’s Mossgiel Road, to 120 hours’ community service, 12 months’ probation, and a three-year road ban.