A young driver who bumped into a pub landlady’s legs while “monkey jumping” his Ford Fiesta in the parking lot of an ancient inn was banned from driving for a year.

On Monday (19 January) Daryl Trueman was found guilty of driving dangerously in the car park of the Carronbridge Hotel in the Campsie Fells, near Stirling.

Stirling Sheriff Court was told that Trueman (21) caused his Fiesta Zetec to strike hotel licensee Hannah Fairbank (29) after finding himself in her car park on a November afternoon in circumstances which a sheriff described as “bizarre”.

The court heard that Trueman and a pal, Alan Michelson, had “gone for a trip” to the Campsies so Mr Michelson, also 21, could test a motorcycle, which he had just spent thousands restoring.

It started to rain, so the pair headed to the old drovers’ inn to find shelter.

However the pub was closed, so Mr Michelson, a warehouseman, pushed his treasured bike into a fenced enclosure near the hotel kitchen to keep it dry before taking refuge in Trueman’s car.

Their presence was noted by Miss Fairbank‘s mother, Susan Rothwell, who was fetching in Miss Fairbank’s horses, also to get them out of the rain.

Mrs Rothwell (60) said she told the two men to leave the car park because the pub was closed, but they “started getting uppity”.

Hannah joined her, to which Trueman began revving his car to scare her.

Mrs Rothwell said: “Hannah was walking down the car park to close the gate behind them. The taller man turned his car round and was revving it and monkey-jumping it.

“His foot was on the clutch and he monkey-jumped it so much he knocked the back of her legs and knocked her forward. If his foot had come off, it would have leapt forward and she’d have gone under it.” Miss Fairbank said she had arrived on the scene to find Trueman “squaring up to my mother” and she also told the pair to leave.

She said: “He revved his car, aimed it towards me, and hit the back of my legs with it.” She added that she was unhurt.

Trueman, of Turnberry Gardens, Cumbernauld, ironically a barman himself denied the charge, and said Miss Fairbank had “deliberately sat on his bonnet” to make a point.

He also claimed that Mrs Rothwell had thrown a bucket of water and beer slops through the open window of his car in her attempt to get rid of him - an allegation that Mrs Rothwell said was “categorically one million percent untrue”.

Sheriff Wyllie Robertson said he believed the women’s account, and found Trueman guilty of dangerous driving after summary trial.

He fined him £500, disqualified him from driving for 12 months, and ordered him to re-sit his test.

He told Trueman: “I accept the evidence of Miss Fairbank and her mother.

“Driving deliberately in that way, so close to someone with the intention of scaring and frightening them, and indeed hitting them, even though no injury was caused, falls far below the standard of a careful and competent driver.” The incident occurred in the afternoon of Friday 8 November 2013.

The court heard the bar and restaurant at the ancient inn has since been closed, and Miss Fairbank is now running the old pub as a bed-and-breakfast.