BUILDING apprentice James Welsh's 200-mile dash to be with his sick grandmother brought him a driving ban yesterday after police clocked his Astra car doing 108mph.

Harrogate magistrates heard how 18-year-old Welsh had been getting ready for work on February 25 when he received a call to say his grandmother, who lived in Cambridge, had suffered a heart attack.

Defence solicitor Chris Bunting said Welsh, of Harris Street, Darlington, had been "upset and desperate because he had feared the worst".

He had wanted to be by the side of his 75-year-old relative so he sped south and was stopped by police on the A1(M) at Allerton Park, near Knaresborough, North Yorkshire.

Mr Bunting said Welsh had been allowed time off work as a building trade apprentice to stay with his grandmother for a week, and she had pulled through.

Welsh, who admitted speeding, was fined £80 with £45 costs and banned from driving for seven days.

Court chairman David Marlow told him: "We accept that in your eyes you had a very important reason for breaking the speed limit, But 108 is not acceptable."