A FITNESS fanatic was caught driving whilst banned after he couldn’t resist a session at his local gym, Alloa Sheriff Court heard.

Kevin Hope (30) was spotted by an off-duty police officer as he drove through Alloa on his way home to Dollar.

Ex-soldier Hope, of Manor House Road, admitted driving whilst disqualified and without insurance on 12 April this year, on Thursday.

His solicitor, Robert Smith, said the car belonged to the mother of Hope’s girlfriend whose house he lived in.

He said, “Mr Hope attends gym regularly. It is almost therapeutic for him. His girlfriend’s mother is in the habit of driving him to the gym.

“On this occasion she suffers from multiple sclerosis and was feeling unwell and declined to give him a lift. He felt he had to go to the gym – almost a compulsive thing. He took her car and drove from Dollar to Alloa, stayed at the gym for an hour, and drove home.” Hope also pled guilty to behaving in a threatening and abusive manner, shouting, swearing and challenging another to a fight on 14 April in Tillicoultry’s High Street.

His co-accused, John McGill (21), of High Street, Tillicoultry, pled guilty to stealing a mobile phone at Westbourne Avenue, Tillicoultry, and behaving in an abusive manner, uttering threats of violence and using racially offensive language towards a police officer at Stirling Police Station, all on the same date.

Sheriff David Mackie sentenced Hope to a Community Payback Order with 12 months supervision and ordered him to complete 135 hours of unpaid work in six months. He was also disqualified from driving for 12 months.

McGill was sentenced to a Community Payback Order with 135 hours of unpaid work to be completed in six months.