A HADDINGTON man who is serving a five-year driving ban has been handed a 12-month disqualification from the road after he was caught within a vehicle that had crashed.

Scott Bennion was found within the heavily damaged Vauxhall Corsa when police officers arrived on the scene at the town’s Clerkington Road.

The officers spotted the unemployed 52-year-old within the vehicle with the engine running after they had been called out to the accident at about 6am on January 28 last year.

Bennion, of Riverside Drive, told officers that the driver of the car had left the area following the crash and he had been unable to follow suit as he was suffering from an injury sustained previously.

Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told that Bennion complied with the officers’ roadside procedure but, after he had been taken to St Leonard’s Police Station in Edinburgh, he refused to provide a specimen of blood when required to do so.

Lawyer Simon Collins, representing Bennion, told the court that his client was within the car after the driver left the scene and the car was undriveable due to a damaged wheel.

Mr Collins said that Bennion “should have provided the sample but did not do so” and his failure to co-operate had landed him in the dock on Monday.

The solicitor said that Bennion was currently banned from driving after he pleaded guilty to a dangerous driving charge in September last year and had been sentenced to a 20-month community payback order. He had also been placed on an eight-month restriction of liberty order and banned from driving for five years.

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Sheriff Donald Corke decided to admonish Bennion on the charge and issued a 12-month driving ban to run concurrently with his existing ban.

Bennion admitted failing to provide a specimen of blood at St Leonard’s Police Station, Edinburgh, on January 28 last year.

Bennion also had not guilty pleas accepted by the Crown to driving the vehicle while disqualified, driving with no insurance and giving police false information regarding the driver of the vehicle following the crash, all on the same date.