A REPEAT offender has been handed a lengthy ban after clocking up his third drug-driving offence in four years.

Bradley David Foster, 24, fell foul of the law again while behind the wheel of a Volvo S60 on November 18 last year.

It had been just after midnight, prosecutor George Shelley told Carlisle magistrates, when Foster was stopped by police on the A66, close to the Rheged centre near Penrith.

“An officer conducted a road side drug wipe which indicated positive for cocaine. He was arrested and taken into custody,” said Mr Shelley.

An evidential sample of blood was sent for analysis. This showed Foster, of Westfield Terrace, Main Road, Flimby, was more than seven times the legal motoring limit.

He admitted driving when the proportion of a controlled drug was above the specified limit.

Magistrates were told Foster had one previous drug-driving conviction dating back to 2021.

He had also been sentenced in February this year for possessing a class A controlled substance and a separate drug-driving crime. These offences had been committed on August 21 last year at Flimby.

For these — and a number of other crimes relating to separate incidents — Foster was given a six-month prison sentence which was suspended for 18 months. Workington magistrates, on that occasion, imposed a 36-month driving ban.

Of the November drug-driving crime, Mr Shelley told the Carlisle magistrates this week: “This offence pre-dates the imposition of that suspended sentence order.”

The court heard Foster was progressing well with the requirements of that  February court order, and had completed more than 86 hours of unpaid work which had been imposed.

Defence solicitor Kate Hunter told the Bench: “Having spoken to Mr Foster today, he is a very pleasant young man. It doesn’t seem to match the (criminal record) he is finding himself with.

“He knows he is going to be disqualified (from driving). He knows it is going to be for a long time. He accepts that.”

Magistrates imposed a 36-month disqualification and ordered Foster to pay a £120 fine.