A DISGUSTED motorist wrongly accused of driving with a large husky dog perched on his LAP says police told a string of ‘howlers’ in a bid to have him convicted.

Furious Tam Hendry was cleared in court after explaining that his pet pooch ‘Amber’ was in a back seat when she stuck her head out of his opened front window.

Officers claimed that the 18-kilo canine was sitting on 19-stone Tam’s knee as he negotiated a roundabout in Greenock with no clear view of the road ahead.

But Tam, 48, barked: “There’s about two inches between me and the steering wheel. You couldn’t even sit a Chihuahua on my lap, let alone a husky.” He added: “I suppose it might even have looked like Amber was actually DRIVING the car from a certain angle but there was no way she was on my lap.

“She was sitting in the back of the car and she somehow managed to get her head beyond the headrest on my seat and out into the open air.” Tam – who had to wait nine months for his day in court – said that two officers ‘lied through their teeth’ over the matter.

He said: “They told a right few howlers alright, trying to say that it was just me and Amber in the car and making out that she jumped on me from the front passenger seat.

“But my wife, Marie, was in the car with me and she was sitting in that seat.

“The police couldn’t even look me in the eye in court. I was staring at them and I couldn’t believe what they were saying.

“The procurator fiscal asked me, ‘Are you saying that the police are telling lies?’, and I told him point blank, ‘Yes, they most certainly are - they’re lying through their teeth’.” Tam told how he was given a £100 on-the-spot fine and three penalty points on his previously unblemished driving licence on 12 February.

He said: “I thought I was in the wrong because Amber did have her head out of my window “But it was when I looked at the wording of the charge later that I said, ‘I’m not having that’, and I called a lawyer.

“The police were asked in court how my driving was. They said I had one hand on the steering wheel and the other around Amber and then they said my driving was perfect.

“They said I was taking the roundabout very slowly, and I was, but that was because it was a cold February day and the roads were icy and slippery.

“The whole story the police told was absolutely shocking.” Tam, of Greenock’s Tasker Street, added: “They were asked as well about how the dog never beeped the horn and flicked the indicator switch if she was on my lap, but they had no answer for that.

“I was sitched up massively — big time.” Tam had been charged with driving his Renault Megane Scenic when he did not have proper control or a full view of the road with Amber on his lap and hanging out of his window.

During the trial, his defence solicitor Derek Buchanan described the police’s claims as ‘completely absurd’.

Tam said: “I’ve had this hanging over me since 12 February.

“I’m gutted, angry, disappointed — choose whatever word you like — that I got pulled for something that just should never have been in the first place.

“The judge saw through it all and decided that the truth was that I was not guilty of anything.

“The judge went away for about 10 minutes and he came back and said that he had listened to what everyone had to say and he had decided that I was not guilty.

“That says it all really.” Tam added: “I was turned down three times for legal aid. I’ve got a good mind to claim my bill back from the police now.

His wife, Marie, 46, said: “I’m just glad that justice has been done, but I am so annoyed at my husband being prosecuted in the first place.”