A MAN whose “ridiculous” driving on the A1 in four counties led to a spate of 999 calls to police has been banned from the roads for two years.

Justin Lee Currie, 26, had worked all night, taken cocaine and drunk alcohol before he tail-gated rush hour traffic, undertaking or overtaking dangerously from close to the Lincolnshire/Nottinghamshire border to a North Yorkshire retail park, York Crown Court heard.

Rob Galley, prosecuting, said when another driver asked Currie “Are you ..... (drunk)?” he replied with slurred speech: “Yes, so what?”

The first driver to alert police on April 12 at 5.15pm guessed Currie was doing 70-80mph and described his driving as “ridiculous”. Judge Simon Hickey told Currie: “You richly deserve to go to custody.”

He said he had put other lives at risk and had driven for at least 40 miles after police had first stopped him and given him advice.

But because Currie, a plumber, had three very young children who depended on his income and employed three people who would lose their job if he went to jail, the judge suspended the eight-month prison sentence for 12 months. He also ordered him to do 150 hours’ unpaid work, banned him from driving for two years and ordered him to retake an extended driving test before driving alone again.

Currie, of Meadow Street, Houghton-le-Spring, must also pay £200 prosecution costs. He pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and drug driving. Police pulled Currie’s damaged and leaking van over near Blyth services in Nottinghamshire. He passed a breath test and a drugs test but less than an hour later, Currie crashed into the back of an Audi near the A1(M) Wetherby services.

Police caught up with him again after he stopped at the St James Retail Park off the A658 at Knaresborough, and arrested him. This time he failed the drugs test, said Mr Galley.

For Currie, Frances Pencheon said he had been working all night before driving, had had cocaine and alcohol, and was hurrying home for a family crisis.