A Royal Guard soldier crashed a pal’s car into another vehicle in a Stirling street while more than four times over the drink-drive limit.
Private in the Royal Regiment of Scotland, Lewis Talbot, based at HM Queen’s Guard, Ballater, had been visiting a friend in Stirling during time off when the incident occurred on the afternoon of July 21 this year.
When he appeared at Stirling Sheriff Court last Wednesday this week the 24-year-old admitted charges of driving a car without the consent of its owner, driving without insurance, driving without a licence, failing to give details following a collision, and driving while the proportion of alcohol in his breath was 98mg in 100ml. The limit being 22mg.
Fiscal depute Sean Iles told the court that Talbot’s friend Sean Coyle had left the car keys in a bedroom at an address in Cornton’s Westwood Crescent.
At 4.45pm that day a witness within a nearby Johnston Avenue address heard “a loud bang” and observed a red Ford Fiesta had crashed into the rear of a red Citroen.
Talbot was in the driver’s seat of the Fiesta and there were no others within the vehicle.
Talbot got out of the car and the witness spoke to the accused for a few minutes. He then left Johnston Avenue.
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Police attended and noticed there had been a collison. They traced the accused to the Westwood Crescent address.
Talbot answered the door, and without any prompting, said: ‘It was me who crashed the car. I’m sorry.’
Required to provide a breath test, the reading at that point was 116mg in 100ml of breath.
He was arrested and taken to Falkirk Police Office where further speciments of breath were taken for analysis. This produced a lower reading of 98 mg in 100 ml of breath.
PNC checks identified Sean Coyle as being insured for the vehicle, not Talbot, who was also identified as the holder of a provisional licence only.
Sheriff Derek Hamilton told Talbot, who was representing himself, that the matter was a “mess” for him.
Questioned by the sheriff, the soldier said he had been in the Army since March 2021 and had signed up for 12 years.
He had been drinking “a fair amount of whisky”, he said, before going out to buy food.
The matter was likely to affect Talbot’s Army career, the court heard.
Sheriff Hamilton told Talbot – whose address was given as Redford Barracks, Edinburgh – “Her Majesty is not going to be very keen about this” and the accused replied “I understand that”.
Sheriff Hamilton fined him a total of £1040, payable at a rate of £200 per month. Talbot was also disqualified from driving for 18 months on the charge of drink driving.
