Grantown drink and drugs driver fined £8,225 after horror crash on A95 whisky road by Kinveachy
A motorist was given a lengthy and costly reminder of his miraculous escape from a car crash after a night partying on drink and drugs in Aviemore when he was fined a massive £8,225 at Inverness Sheriff Court.
Jay Milne (23), who was also banned from driving for six years, ended up in an induced coma after he got behind the wheel of a car intoxicated when he was also disqualified from driving and uninsured. He suffered brain injuries.
His passenger, Timothy Kumar, whom he had only just met, suffered multiple fractures and a punctured lung on May 14, 2023, after giving Milne permission to drive his Mercedes 350.
The performance vehicle overturned down an embankment and struck a tree after Milne lost control.
But despite warning Milne that a jail sentence was a distinct possibility, Sheriff Gary Aitken declined to send him to jail after defence solicitor Willie Young told the court that his client had turned his life around, given up alcohol and drugs and had got himself a good well paid job with future prospects.
Sheriff Aitken told him: " I hope you realise just how irresponsible, immature, selfish and stupid you were on the night. This could easily have been a double fatal. The only saving grace is the penny seems to have dropped and you have got your life under control.
"Hopefully you are on your way to becoming a useful member of society. You are earning a good wage and there is no reason why you should not take a big chunk of it to remind you of this over a long period. I trust we will never see you back here again."
Milne, of Chapel Road, Grantown, who admitted driving while disqualified, under the influence of drink and drugs, having no insurance and causing serious injury by dangerous driving was ordered to pay the fine at £750 a month.
His readings were 89mcgs of a cocaine metabolite in his system when the limit is 50mgs and 94mcgs of alcohol when the maximum is 22mcgs.
Milne must sit the extended driving test of competency before he can drive again. The court was told at a previous hearing that police were on their way to another collison at 3:10 a.m., when they came across the Mercedes on the A95 near Kinveachy.
The Mercedes had left the road, gone down a verge, hit a tree, and was lying on its roof.
Fiscal depute Pauline Gair told Sheriff Gary Aitken that: “The accused was found in the driver's seat by police and was able to respond to them.
“Witness Timothy Kumar was in the passenger seat and appeared unresponsive.
“The Scottish Ambulance Service was contacted and the accused was extracted from the vehicle. Timothy Kumar was initially presumed to have life-threatening injuries to his chest and abdomen and so the on-call Forensic Collision Investigators were asked to attend the locus."
It was determined Milne had lost control of the vehicle and after attempting to rectify this, the car veered off the verge, broke through a fence and pitched downward and then rolled clockwise and collided with a tree, before travelling after the tree and coming to rest on its roof.
At the scene when asked if he was the driver, Milne told police: “Me. No licence, no insurance, I’m f*****”.
Milne was arrested and taken to Raigmore alongside Mr Kumar for assessment.
Ms Gair continued: “Milne was assessed and a frontal bleed to his brain was detected. He was immediately placed in a medically induced coma and transferred by road ambulance to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, where it was confirmed he had sustained a fracture to his skull behind the right eye, resulting in a small bleed.
“Mr Kumar was also transferred to ARI and found to have sustained multiple fractures to his ribs, spine and chest and a collapsed left lung.”
When police interviewed Mr Kumar about the incident, he told them: “I think it was someone whose name started with a J. I offered someone my keys and let them drive.”
He refused to provide a statement to police about the incident.
