A DEVOTEE of Hare Krishna who drove his Mercedes at 97mph on the M4 near Swindon in January, was more than eight times over the prescribed level for cannabis, a court heard on Wednesday.

Joseph Lee Donavon, 51, of The Lizard in Cornwall, represented himself when he appeared before magistrates in Swindon and pleaded guilty to driving when the quantity of cannabis in his blood was 17 microgrammes per litre of blood. The specified limit is two microgrammes.

Prosecutor Pauline Lambert told the magistrates Donavon was pulled over by police conducting a laser speed check on the M4 at 1.40pm on January 19 this year.

After stopping the car officers smelled cannabis and a roadside drug wipe proved positive.

When taken to Gable Cross Police Station in Swindon, not only did Donovan’s blood tests reveal the high level of cannabis in his blood but a substantial quantity of the drug was also found in his car, Ms Lambert told the court.

Donavon told the bench that he had not been smoking cannabis but had been using a CBTX spray of oil which smells like cannabis.

“You can check it on Amazon if you wish,” he said.

He said the spray was a medication for the pain in his feet, as he suffered from Morton's neuroma - a condition in which a nerve in the foot becomes irritated and thickened, which can cause severe pain.

He said he had also been using cannabis capsules for the pain at 6pm the night before but had not been smoking in the car.

He said the cannabis smell detected by the police was probably from the cannabis he had with him and he was very embarrassed to have caused trouble.

“Driving is a privilege and I am very sorry I have lost that,” he added.

He said he ran a lighting and sound business and had been in London for four or five days in connection with that and was driving home to Cornwall when he was stopped.

Donavon, a Hare Krishna and a vegan, said he was quite appalled by his behaviour and the risk he had posed to other people, he told the magistrates.

Jane Flew, the chairman of the bench, told Donavon the sentence reflected the fact that he had been driving a very long distance with a substantial quantity of drugs in his system and was driving at 97mph.

He was disqualified from driving for 16 months, fined £860 and ordered to pay £85 court costs and a victim surcharge of £86.

The court was told that the speeding matter had been dealt with by post with a fine, which Donovan said he had already paid.

And licence endorsement and the matter of the cannabis found in his car was to be dealt with by another court.