A MAGISTRATE yesterday banned Chelsea starlet Islam Feruz for 18 months and told him his driving was "dangerous and outrageous".
At Glasgow District Court Feruz, 18, was convicted of driving a black BMW 3 series at speeds of up to 70mph between George Square and Wishart Street, Glasgow, on December 30, 2012.
Striker Feruz, who has also played for Scotland and Celtic, was also found guilty of driving with no insurance and not displaying L plates.
Magistrate Alan Findlay fined Ferez £500 and ordered him to pay within 28 days and told him: "What concerns me is the distance of this incident. An experienced police officer described your driving as 'outrageous'. I agree it was outrageous and dangerous."
PC Douglas McMillan said that Feruz's driving was the worst he had ever seen. He told the court how he and a colleague in an unmarked police car followed Feruz as he drove at up to 70mph through the streets of Glasgow's east end at 5am with five passengers on board.
In evidence Feruz, who described himself as a Chelsea player, admitted he was a learner driver at the time and had no insurance. He has since passed his test.
He said he was back in Glasgow visiting friends. They had been in the Sugarcube nightclub on Queen Street and had been driving back to a flat in Wishart Street.
He denied driving at up to 70mph, saying: "The maximum was 55 to 60 mph."
Feruz also denied going on to the wrong side of the road.
Feruz was convicted of dangerous driving, having no insurance and failing to display L plates and ordered to resit his driving test.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article