'Stupid' man crashed into ice while driving along frozen canal

A man described as "the only person daft enough" to try to drive his car along a frozen canal has avoided a jail sentence after an escapade in which he almost killed himself, his passenger and his friend's pet dog. Andrew Nisbet thought he could drive his W-reg Peugeot 406 from Philpstoun, West Lothian, along the frozen surface of the Union Canal into Edinburgh on a freezing January afternoon. But less than a mile along, his car crashed through the ice, with Nisbet, his passenger James Naismith, 22, and Naismith's dog nearly drowning in the process.



Nisbet, his passenger and the dog escaped, and the partially-submerged car was later discovered by the emergency services. Firefighters from Central and Lothian and Border fire services had to use special equipment to reach the car and check no one was inside. Nisbet, 25, labelled "mad" by police, "stupid" by his own lawyer, and "possibly insane" by one sheriff was sentenced to 200 hours community service.

He is also being sued for the £16,359 cost of the salvage. Lothian and Borders Fire Brigade is likely to pursue him for a further £5,199. Sheriff Donald Muirhead told Nisbet: "You have been described as stupid in a police report and your own lawyer called you daft. You have shown criminal indifference on what effect your behaviour would have on other people. You just didn't care what effect what you were doing would have on others."



Nisbet, whose escapades included performing handbrake turns on the ice, earlier said he was convinced the ice would take the weight of his car. He said: "Things were just about OK until we got to a bridge and it was not properly frozen underneath. We must have been doing more than 30 miles an hour before we noticed the puddles up ahead. We decided to go for it anyway and the front end just gave way on the ice. It seemed like a good idea at the time."