YORK magistrates have told a motorist to give up driving permanently after he was caught at the wheel with both alcohol and cocaine traces in his body.

Shane Paul Rooks, 39, is now starting his third driving ban in four years and his fourth ban in total for drink driving.

York magistrates heard he was partway through a 70-mile drive when police stopped him on the A64 at York.

Defence solicitor Neal Kutte said Rooks had abandoned his partner after an argument in Scarborough where they had gone for a day out and was on his way home.

Matthew Rose, prosecuting, said Rooks didn’t have a valid driving licence and therefore couldn’t be insured for the journey.

He had been banned for drink driving in 2021, 2020 and 2012. He had also been convicted of driving whilst disqualified and without insurance in 2013.

Magistrates told him: “You need to think about going on driving. It is time to think that driving is not for you.”

Rooks, of Fox Place, Richmond Hill, Leeds, pleaded guilty to drink driving, drug driving, driving without insurance and driving without a licence.

He was banned from driving for 40 months, put on a 12-month community order with 80 hours’ unpaid work and 10 days’ rehabilitative activities and ordered to pay a £114 statutory surcharge and £85 prosecution costs.

Rooks told the court he didn’t have a licence because the DVLA had asked him to undergo a medical assessment before he could get his driving licence back after his last ban and he had not done so.

Mr Rose said police stopped Rooks in connection with a different matter on May 5 and he failed both a roadside breathalyser test and a drugs swipe test.

At Fulford Road Police Station, Rooks gave a reading of 49 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35. A blood test revealed he had metabolised cocaine in his system.

Mr Kutte said Rooks wasn’t a regular cocaine taker but had been offered some before May 5 and hadn’t appreciated it would still be in his body.

There was no evidence of bad driving and he apologised for his actions.

Rooks told a probation officer he had two pints of lager on May 5 and didn’t realise that put him over the limit. He had argued with two or three men.