A Dunfermline pensioner with 35 driving convictions was told he could be back on the roads in four years’ time if he stays out of trouble.
Despite having racked up a lifelong driving ban, Robert Murphy, 67, was given the chance to get behind the wheel again by Sheriff Ian Abercrombie.
The sheriff said Murphy, of Inchkeith Drive, would keep reoffending unless he gave him “some hope”.
Sparing him jail and instead imposing community-based court orders, he said: “This is the 35th time, by my calculation … that you’ve appeared in this court charged with driving while disqualified. I’m almost certain you have previously appeared for driving without insurance.
“I’ve decided today not to send you to prison because I don’t think it has done you any good in the past. It only takes you away from your wife.
“If you adhere to this order, and if you do not drive until the first opportunity when you come back to this court for review in 2017, I would then be prepared to consider an application for you to get your licence back.
“If you don’t do that, you are going to have this life ban in place for the rest of your life.”
He added: “Thirty-four times he hasn’t learned his lesson. The problem here is he can’t see any way out of reoffending.
“This would all be conditional on him not driving at all while disqualified. At least there would be hope on the horizon that he would get his licence back.”
Sheriff Abercrombie imposed a three-year community payback order, during which Murphy will have to carry out 240 hours of unpaid work.
Murphy, whose latest offence was driving while disqualified and without insurance in Inchkeith Drive on August 16, was also sentenced to a six-month restriction of liberty order and six-month disqualification.
The accused was told the court orders were imposed as an alternative to prison.
Taking into account Murphy’s previous disqualifications, solicitor Gordon Martin said the earliest his client could apply to have his licence restored would be 2017.