AN Eastleigh drug driver caught near Winchester has been banned from the roads.

Jared McCants, 25, driving a 58-reg Ford Focus when he was stopped by officers on the M3 on July 24, a court was told.

McCants, scaffolder, of Spring Lane, Bishopstoke, was tested and returned a reading for benzoylecgonine, BZE, a cocaine breakdown product, of 486ug/l when the legal limit is 50ug/l. He was more than eight times the legal limit.

He admitted the charge when he appeared at Basingstoke Magistrates Court.

McCants was disqualified from driving for 12 months, fined £250 and ordered to pay £45 costs and a £34 victim surcharge.

Earlier this month McCants was sentenced for an attack on a man at a flat in Bell Street in Romsey.

At Southampton Crown Court he was jailed for two years, suspended for two years, for assault causing grievous bodily harm in July when he saw his former partner with another man.