A SUSPECTED drug driver who refused to give police a blood sample after he was stopped on the M6 near Southwaite said he was “terrified” of needles.

Ahmad Alfroh, 28, admitted failing to provide a specimen for analysis after police stopped his car on the motorway because he was driving at “excessive speed,” Carlisle’s Rickergate court heard.

A roadside drug test gave a positive indication for cannabis.

Prosecutor Diane Jackson described how, while the defendant was at the city's Durranhill police station, he simply refused to give a specimen of blood. She told magistrates: “When asked for a specimen, he said: ‘No. I don’t trust you.

“’I think you may put a virus into my body.”

He repeated his fear that something would be put into his body. The defendant had no previous convictions, the court heard. “It was a deliberate refusal,” added Mrs Jackson.

Anthony Wilson, defending, told the court: “I’d be the same as him if it happened to me because I don’t like needles either.

“He is terrified of needles and he was terrified of giving that blood sample. Some of us are. But it’s not a defence in law, unfortunately.”

The lawyer said Alfroh, from Morton Street, Manchester, was a self-employed builder’s labourer, and he knew he would be disqualified. Mr Wilson urged magistrates to keep the ban as short as possible.

The magistrates imposed a 12-month community order with 60 hours of unpaid work an a £114 victim surcharge. They banned Alfroh for 17 months.