A man pranged his own car in a ditch, took a tractor on a drunken joyride and forced police to set up a 17mph roving roadblock on the A90.
Sozzled Kenneth Douglas pinched a tractor at dawn on July 4 after he had jettisoned his own car on an unclassified road.
After finding the keys in the tractor at a nearby farm, he took the vehicle for a spin, brazenly passing the front door of Forfar police station.
Douglas, who once forced a six-hour siege at his Perthshire home, was followed onto the A90, where police formed a roving roadblock.
After trying to bump a squad car, he told officers: “It is what it is.”
At Forfar Sheriff Court, he was banned from driving, placed under supervision and fined.
Rural riot
Fiscal depute Stephanie Hendry said at 1.40am on July 4, police were on routine patrol between Eassie and Newtyle .
There, they found Douglas’s abandoned Honda Civic in a ditch.
Shortly after, police were contacted by staff from a nearby petrol station with concerns about the driver of a tractor who they had seen hitting kerbs.
Officers leaving Forfar police station at 5.20am to investigate watched the tractor pass their front door.
They followed it along Dundee Loan and onto Dundee Road.
Driver Douglas was seen swerving onto the opposing carriageway.
He turned onto the A90 northbound at the Lochlands junction and continued for half a mile.
Still swerving and travelling at 17mph, Douglas was surrounded by a moving police roadblock to prevent any other road users getting close.
When one police vehicle attempted to pass him, Douglas deliberately swerved to try to hit it but missed.
The tractor wheels locked near the Glamis junction and the vehicle ground to a halt.
Douglas eventually exited, 45 minutes after passing the police station.
He said: “It is what it is.”
After refusing to provide breath samples at West Bell Street Police HQ, he told police: “I’m already going back to jail.”
‘Crazy’ behaviour
Douglas admitted driving his own car carelessly and the tractor dangerously.
He also pled guilty to taking the tractor without permission, driving it without a licence or insurance and failing to provide breath samples.
His solicitor Keith Sym said: “This is a crazy piece of behaviour.
“He has pled guilty to serious road traffic offences, particularly given the size of the vehicle he was driving.
“There had been family issues. He’d recently been given a five-month restriction of liberty order.
“That had an impact on his mental health. There had been a relapse.”
Sheriff Eric Brown disqualified 41-year-old Douglas, of Craighall Place in Rattray, for a year.
He will be supervised for the same period, must pay a £320 fine and has to sit the extended test before driving again.
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