A 38 year old Tewkesbury man was caught twice in three months driving with a cocktail of illegal drugs in his body, magistrates in Cheltenham were told last Friday (September 11).

Stephen Hitchin of Cambrian road, Walton Cardiff, Tewkesbury, pleaded guilty to driving on 26th 2019 last year and again on 11th January this year with cocaine, a metabolite of cocaine and also a cannabis metabolite at excess levels in his system on each occasion.

The court heard that on the first occasion he was driving a Ford Focus on the A438 Ashchurch road in Tewkesbury and the second set of offences were in the in the same car on the A435 Racecourse Roundabout in Cheltenham.

He pleaded guilty to all six offences and was sentenced to 28 days jail suspended for a year.

He was also disqualified from driving for three years and ordered to pay £292 in costs and surcharges.

The magistrates said they had decided on a prison sentence because of the high levels of drugs involved, the fact that he committed the second set of offences while on bail for the first, and also because he had a passenger in his car on one of the two occasions.

The sentence includes 12 months of probation supervision during which Hitchin must obey a rehabilitation activity requirement.