AN EXHAUSTED cabinet maker whose car crashed off the M6 near Shap tested positive for a cocaine breakdown product.

But a defence lawyer for 43-year-old Paulo George Sena told magistrates that the defendant, who pleaded guilty to drug driving, had mistakenly assumed cocaine he used days earlier would have left his system.

Prosecutor Diane Jackson outlined the facts.

The offence was discovered shortly before midday on January 13 after the defendant’s southbound Ford Transit van was involved in an accident between the motorway’s Junctions 39 and 40, near Shap.

“There was only the one vehicle involved and it veered off the motorway and into a field,” said the prosecutor. A later test confirmed that at the time the defendant had 70mcg of a cocaine breakdown product in his system.

The legal limit for driving is 50mcg.

Mark Shepherd, defending, said Sena was a man of “positive previous good character.”

“The consequences from today are going to loom large for him over an extended period of time, though he accepts he has only himself to blame,” said Mr Shepherd.

The defendant had made a misjudgement, said the lawyer, saying the reading for benzoylecgonine (BZE), the cocaine breakdown product involved, was low compared to what the courts often see.

Mr Shepherd continued: “He believed it would have completely gone from his system and he was not over the BZE cocaine limit at the time.

“He was wrong. He and his wife, having travelled up from Oxford, are going to have to bear the consequences of that. His main relief is that nobody was nobody was injured as a result of this. He apologises.

“It is out of character for him. He’s an expert cabinet maker and he has worked extensively for many people over the years. The income for the family will be hit very hard indeed. Doing the work he does is going to be very, very difficult without a licence.”

On the day of the offence, Sena had worked till 4am in Edinburgh.

"Tiredness must have been a factor," added the lawyer. The first thing Sena recalled of the accident was realising that the van was rolling.

Magistrates noted that there were passenger in the van and the defendant had been tired. But they also took into account the defendant’s previous good character and the “very strong mitigation”, with references that were “quite exceptional.”

They imposed a community order that includes 40 hours of unpaid work. The defendant, of Moorlands, Benson, Oxfordshire, must pay £85 costs and a £114 victim surcharge. He was given a 17-month driving ban.