A MOTORIST has received a lengthy ban after he was caught driving while nearly three times over a controlled drug limit.

Billy Wood, of Chestnut Grove, Ulverston, was stopped by road traffic officers in his Citroen Berlingo on May 1 earlier this year.

Court records show the 51-year-old provided a positive DrugsWipe test for Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol - the principal psychoactive constituent of cannabis - at the roadside on Chestnut Grove.

He was arrested for driving a motor vehicle with a proportion of a specified controlled drug above the legal limit and taken into custody.

Wood provided a blood sample for analysis which showed the level of THC in his system was 5.8 ug/L. The legal limit is 2.0.

At South Cumbria Magistrates’ Court on November 11, Wood was disqualified from driving for 36 months and fined £486 for the offence.

Magistrates also ordered that he pay court costs of £85 and a £194 surcharge.