A SOUTHAMPTON man who drove around Hampshire in a makeshift ‘ambulance’ has been banned from driving for 18 months.

David Maclean was also fined a total of £1,200 after he racked up a catalogue of driving offences.

At a previous hearing he was found guilty of using a motor vehicle without third party insurance, using a vehicle without an excise licence and driving without due care and attention.

Maclean, of Holcroft Road, Thornhill, admitted 13 driving offences, including speeding, using a prohibited flashing light and failing to comply with a stop sign.

Southampton Magistrates’ Court heard that Maclean, 31, was being trained to drive a car resembling an ambulance when he didn’t have a tax disc at the time of his arrest. He was arrested on March 27 after driving down the wrong side of Jewry Street in Winchester, where he drove around a blind corner in a Ford Mondeo.

Speaking on his behalf David Moloney said the law allows him to be trained in an ambulance except when driving a high speeds.

He said: “My client was driving around Southampton and Winchester and the only episode of substandard driving was in a very narrow window of three or four seconds.”

Handing down his sentence, District Judge Anthony Callaway said: “It’s perfectly clear to me that while this vehicle was akin to an ambulance, it was not an ambulance, shouldn’t have been driven in the way that it was, and shouldn’t have been used in a training exercise.”

He added: “He shouldn’t have been driving in that particular manner in the way that the prosecution maintains.”

MacLean was given three bans from driving for 18 months for driving without a licence, driving without insurance for driving without due care and attention, all to run concurrently.

There was no separate penalty for the other offences however they will be endorsed on his licence.

His employer, Alison Patrick of Satsco Limited, who provide aid to the emergency services, said they would appeal the decision and added that “the law is out of date and needs urgent addressing by Parliament”.

She added: “[The instructor] was not concerned with the standard of driving demonstrated by Mr Maclean and after reviewing the in-car CCTV can confirm at no stage were member of the public’s lives at risk.”

As previously reported, Maclean won an appeal in 2010 to get his conviction quashed for dressing in a uniform that would make the public believe he was a real officer.