Drink drive ban for man who blamed tub of raspberries for putting him over alcohol limit

A bowling club president who claimed raspberries made him drunk before he went out driving a taxi was banned from the road for 18 months. Thomas Cook blamed a large pot of raspberries for making him more than double the drink drive limit but a sheriff told him his excuse was "incredible". Former Royal Marine Cook said he had been teetotal for 50 years but had unwittingly eaten raspberries which were equivalent to ten pints of beer.

However, Sheriff Lindsay Foulis dismissed Cook's bizarre claim and rejected his special reason for non-disqualification plea at Perth Sheriff Court. He banned Cook, of Whitecraigs Road, Cupar, Fife, and fined him £800. Sheriff Foulis said: "I find it virtually incredible that a man who is almost 70 and has the experience of life of someone that age can effectively consume the equivalent of two bottles of wine or ten pints of beer in an hour and get into a car unaware their ability to drive is affected.



"I would have thought it was most unusual that if your account was correct, then when you were stopped by the police officers nothing was said to them. I find it almost impossible to believe that someone consuming that amount of alcohol from any berry compote would not think 'there's something a bit funny about this'."

19-stone Cook, who told the court he was a tee-total Mormon, said he had not touched alcohol since 1961 and was "shocked" when a breath test showed he was well over double the limit. Cook claimed the only way the alcohol could have got into his system was from a litre and a half tub of raspberries he had eaten shortly before driving his private hire taxi. The 69-year-old former Hibs player said the fruit - weighing a kilo and amounting to roughly 250 berries - must have contained alcohol he was unaware of at the time.