A MILITARY veteran was caught drug-driving after smoking cannabis the night before getting behind the wheel, a court has heard.

Jamie Stuart Taylor entered a guilty plea when he appeared before magistrates in Hereford on January 13.

Prosecutor Shafquat Reaz said Taylor had been pulled over after he was spotted driving a Vauxhall Insignia in Upper Eggleton, near Ledbury, at 6am on July 16.

He was asked to take a roadside drug test after telling officers his licence had been revoked, and was arrested after it returned a positive result for cannabis.

The 35-year-old was taken into custody in Hereford, where a blood test revealed he had 2.2 microgrammes of cannabis metabolite delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol per litre of blood. The legal limit is two.

The court heard Taylor was also in breach of a suspended sentence imposed in January last year.

Chris Read, for Taylor, said the military veteran had been on his way to work when he was stopped.

"He accepts he had smoked cannabis the night before," Mr Read said.

"The suspended sentence matter was very different in nature, and there have been no breaches of its conditions of that suspended sentence, which he is due to be free of in just over a week."

The court heard Taylor, who is currently out of work, is now receiving support from veteran's organisations.

Taylor, of Eign Street, Hereford, was disqualified from driving for 12 months and fined £120. His suspended sentence was extended by four months and he must pay costs of £135 and a £34 victim surcharge.