A MAN who was caught behind the wheel near Loch Lomond while nearly SIX TIMES the legal drug limit has been banned from the roads for two years.

Stuart Pama was stopped on the A82 near the Stoneymollan roundabout in Balloch on October 26, 2022.

The 41-year-old tested positive for benzoylecgonine - the main metabolite of cocaine.

He gave a sample which had 297 milligrammes of the substance per litre of blood.

The limit is just 50mg.

Pama, of Berryburn, Dunoon, later pleaded guilty to the offence and returned to Dumbarton Sheriff Court on February 20 for sentencing.

And Sheriff Maxwell Hendry was unimpressed.

"He was driving with almost six times the legal limit and that comes on the back of bad driving over a decade," the sheriff remarked.

Pama's defence solicitor said his client realised "the seriousness of the situation", and he had a problem with cannabis - not the drug found in his system on the busy road.

"He acknowledges his guilt," said the lawyer.

Sheriff Hendry noted that because of delays in the court system in dealing with his case, Pama had continued to drive for two years after the crime, and did so "while awaiting sentence on something broadly similar".

And he warned Pama would now be a target for the police, and that any further offending of a similar nature would lead to a prison sentence.

The defence solicitor said: "He would abide by any community based disposal as a direct alternative to custody."

Sheriff Hendry told Pama: "You're very much in last-chance territory.

"I think I could impose a prison sentence today. I'm jut holidng back from doing that, but it has to stop.

"You were almost six times the limit. You could not have been in proper control."

Pama was disqualified from driving or holding a licence for two years. He must do 140 hours of unpaid work in the community within 12 months.

He will be also be supervised by social workers and must take drug counselling or treatment as directed by them.