A DRUG-driver travelling home from a music festival was caught out after police spotted defective rear lights on his van.

Benjamin Alan Strafford, 41, came to the attention of officers heading south on the M6 between Penrith and Carlisle on Monday, June 17 this year. Strafford was also travelling southbound behind the wheel of a Mercedes Vito van.

“They noticed the Mercedes van had defective rear lights,” prosecutor Diane Jackson told Carlisle Magistrates’ Court.

Strafford was asked to pull over in the area of the Junction 41 exit slip road.

“When stopping, the driver was slow to react. Police became suspicious he might be under the influence,” said Mrs Jackson.

Strafford took a drug wipe test which gave a positive reading for cocaine. In custody he provided a specimen which showed the level of the class A drug in his bloodstream was over the legal limit. In court, he admitted a drug-driving charge.

“I was at a music festival from the Saturday,” Strafford told a district judge by way of explanation. “I thought it (the cocaine) would be out of my system by then.”

Cocaine use was not a regular habit for Strafford, he told the court, adding that he expected the mandatory driving ban which loomed.

“I do need to drive for my work,” said Strafford, a self-employed plumbing and heating engineer. It is going to have an impact on my job.”

He was currently in receipt of universal credit as he recovered from knee surgery, receiving physiotherapy and he spoke of “stressing out massively” at his strained financial situation.

“If you could be lenient in any way towards the ban, that would be fantastic,” Strafford said to district judge John Temperley.

Judge Temperley imposed the minimum mandatory 12-month driving ban.

“I am going to have to find a way around it,” said Strafford in response. “Life doesn’t stop unfortunately, does it?”

Strafford, of Lang Kirk Close, Farnhill, near Skipton, must pay a £200 fine as part of a total £435 court bill.