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Oban Sheriff orders forfeiture of £5,000 vehicle after former police officer is caught twice
An Oban taxi driver has had his car confiscated by a court after being caught drink-driving on duty twice. Lachlan MacIntyre, 68, of 1 Law Cottages, Oban, had his people carrier, worth about £5,000, forfeited at Oban Sheriff Court yesterday.
MacIntyre, a former police officer, pleaded guilty to drink-driving in Oban’s Station Square while waiting for a hire at the rank on February 8 and to drink-driving while carrying a customer in Combie Street on April 24.
Banning him from driving for four years and fining him £560, Sheriff Douglas Small told MacIntyre: “I consider the circumstances of this offence to fall into the category of being outrageous.
“You were a taxi driver. You had a passenger in your taxi at the time. That passenger had put his or her trust in you. You breached that trust to a huge degree. “For that reason I consider it entirely appropriate to order forfeiture of your vehicle.”
Defence solicitor Edward Thornton had unsuccessfully pleaded for MacIntyre to keep his Volkswagen Sharan car so that he could continue to make an income from it by getting someone else to drive it for him.
Mr Thornton said: “He is extremely ashamed of what happened. He will effectively never drive again, whether in terms of his personal life or his employment.”
MacIntyre was caught the first time on February 8 after an anonymous tip-off to police, the court heard. His vehicle was sitting in a queue of taxis at Station Square when he was approached by police and gave a positive breath-test. He was taken to Oban police station where a sample showed he was nearly twice the legal drink-drive limit.
In the early hours of April 24 MacIntyre’s taxi came to the attention of police in Combie Street when they noted it had no headlights on. They stopped him to tell him, and noted the smell of alcohol on his breath.
He had a paying passenger in the car and was found to be more than twice the limit. Mr Thornton said that, on February 8, MacIntyre’s car had gone into the garage for repairs. He didn’t expect to get it back until the following day, so had two whiskies and two pints of beer with a large lunch.
But he then got a call at 6pm to say his car was available, and decided to drive. On the second occasion, on April 24, Mr Thornton said, “he had consumed alcohol at lunch and didn’t think he was over the limit”.
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