A MAN has been banned from driving after being caught speeding on a Herefordshire road while over the drug drive limit.

Shamus Bishop pleaded guilty at Hereford Magistrates Court to driving when over the drug drive limit.

Prosecutor Melanie Winterflood told the court that on April 4, police officers saw Bishop driving a Volkswagen Passat on the B4348 at Peterchurch in Herefordshire at a speed that exceeded the limit for that road.

The officers pulled the car over and administered a roadside drug wipe, which Bishop failed.

A blood sample was later taken in custody, giving a reading of 2.6 micrograms of cannabis metabolite delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol per litre of blood, exceeding the legal limit of 2 micrograms.

The prosecutor told the court that on a previous driving charge, Bishop had failed to provide a specimen for analysis.

Defence solicitor, Emily Gourley, said that Bishop, from Dursley in Gloucestershire, had entered a guilty plea at the first opportunity and accepted that he had been driving at 36 miles per hour on a road with a 30 limit.

She said that when stopped, the 23-year-old fully co-operated with police and though he gave a positive reading, he had not been smoking cannabis that day.

She told the court that a mandatory driving ban would likely cause him to lose his job.

Bishop was given a three-year driving ban by the court.

He was also ordered to pay a fine of £120, costs of £135 and a victim surcharge of £34.