A LABOUR General Election candidate has been suspended after being stopped for alleged drink-driving at the wheel of a Maserati.
Sumon Hoque, 32, who was standing in Alex Salmond's old seat of Banff and Buchan, was also charged with driving the Quattroporte saloon without a licence and other motoring offences.
Mr Hoque, 32, of Aberdeen, appeared at the city's sheriff court yesterday charged with a string of driving offences.
He is accused of driving the vehicle without a valid MOT certificate and without a licence, while over the legal limit.
Mr Hoque allegedly drove the car, which had a private registration plate - along Bridge Street in Aberdeen on May 1 last year.
It is claimed he had 44 micrograms in 100 millilitres of breath, with then then legal limit 35 micrograms.
He had no MOT certificate in place for the vehicle and he was not the holder of a licence authorising him to drive the car.
Mr Hoque is further claimed to have caused an obstruction with the motor on Bridge Street in the city.
It is alleged that he also failed to give information of who was driving the car to a police officer on the same date.
He denied the charges yesterday and will go on trial next month.
Mr Hoque, a development manager for a television production company, vowed to push economic development and fight for more affordable housing and a better NHS health service when he was selected as a candidate.
The Aberdeen University graduate is an active community worker and board director at the Grampian Regional Equality Council.
A spokesman for the Scottish Labour Party said: "Sumon Hoque has been suspended from representing the Labour Party and we have, therefore, withdrawn support from him as the general election candidate."
Banff and Buchan, which Mr Salmond held for 23 years until the 2010 General Election was retained by the SNP after the First Minister stepped down.
It was held by Elidh Whiteford with a majority of 4,027 over the Conservatives. Labour trailed in third. When Mr Hoque was selected in February, he pledged ensure the constituency's issues that "matter" are "highlighted and fought for."
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