A DOCTOR has been given a 12-month driving ban after police in Cumbria caught him drug driving on the M6.

Dominic Williams, 29, denied the offence, claiming that he had smoked cannabis at the side of the motorway as police were speaking to him. But after a trial at Carlisle’s Rickergate court, he was found guilty.

The court heard that the defendant was driving northwards in his VW Passat car on May 22 last .year when police stopped him at the Todhills area.

A roadside drug test yielded a positive result for cannabis.

The trial was shown police bodycam footage which showed the defendant, after being stopped, lighting a cigarette and smoking it.

The police officer who stopped the defendant - a former firearms officer with 14 years of service  – told the court that thee cigarette was not, as claimed by the defendant a joint but factory made.

The officer said the cigarette smoked by Williams did not smell of cannabis and there was nothing to suggest it was anything other than a factory made cigarette. 

Defending himself, Williams had suggested that at the time when he was stopped by the police he was not in fact over the limit for cannabis, and only appeared to be because of his subsequent use of cannabis.

A blood test later confirmed that Williams had 5.8mcg of the active ingredient of cannabis in every litre of blood. The legal limit for driving is 2mcg.

District Judge John Temperley rejected the defendant's explanation during the trial that he was over the limit because he consumed cannabis after being stopped.

Finding Williams guilty, the District judge imposed the minimum driving ban of one year.

The defendant, of Mount Avenue, Waltham Forest, London, was also fined £800, with costs of £1,250 and told to pay a surcharge of £320.