POLICE stopped the driver of a purple Lamborghini because it was ‘accelerating hard’ between speed bumps along Station Road in Cross Hills, heard Skipton Magistrates Court.

There was also a strong smell of cannabis coming from the car being driven by Shezad Sikander, 32, the court heard today (Friday).

Sikander tested positive for drugs at the roadside and was arrested and taken to Harrogate Police Station where he provided a blood sample for analysis. It later revealed he had 2.5microgrammes of the cannabis by-product delta-tetrahydrocannabinol in one litre of blood. The specified limit is two.

Sikander, who admitted drugs driving in Cross Hills on December 19 last year, told the court he had been attending his cousin’s party.

He added he had smoked cannabis for about ten years, but denied there had been any in the car at the time and that he had last smoked the drug some six to ten hours earlier, not appreciating it stayed in his system.

The chairman of the magistrates bench told Sikander he had been driving a ‘nice, high powered car’ and things could have been a lot worse in that people could have died.

Sikander, of Walter Street, Brierfield, Lancs, was banned from driving for 12 months and fined £253. He was also ordered to pay costs of £85 and a surcharge of £34.