Pop star Will Young banned from driving after crash on A68 in Borders

Pop star Will Young has been banned from the road for six months after admitting careless driving on the A68 in the Borders.

Racecourse commentator Rob Hogarth only narrowly avoided being hit by a car being driven by the 39-year-old singer and actor, Jedburgh Sheriff Court heard today.

Young was fined £600 and had his driving licence endorsed with five penalty points.

As the singer previously had 11 penalty points on his licence, he was disqualified from driving under the totting-up procedure for the next half-year.

Young originally pleaded guilty by letter to entering a lay-by in error, having misread the road layout at excessive speed for the conditions, and colliding with a parked vehicle.

The owner of the parked car, a Nissan Qashqai, was only narrowly missed and both it and Young’s Mercedes were left damaged.

The pop star’s lawyer, Stuart Munro, said the ban would have “practical implications” when he returns to his Cornwall home at the end of July after his run in a West End show in London, a stage version of the 1992 Baz Luhrmann film Strictly Ballroom, finishes.

Charged under his full name of William Robert Young, he appeared in the dock in person and admitted careless driving in a northbound lay-by on the A68 Edinburgh-Darlington road near Sorrowlessfield Farm on January 21 this year.

Sheriff Euan Edment told him: “I understand it was a momentary lapse of judgement.”

Berkshire-born Young shot to fame by winning the first series of ITV’s Pop Idol in 2002, beating Gareth Gates in its final.

Since then, four of his six studio albums have topped the charts, most recently his sixth and latest, 85% Proof in 2015.

He has also notched up four singles chart No 1s, the last being Leave Right Now in 2003.