A NEWLY qualified driver who was showing off in a Dunfermline car park lost control and crashed.

Lewis Harrison hit a parked car which was then pushed into another vehicle where a woman was sitting waiting to meet friends.

He later admitted he and his friends had been acting like “idiots”.

Harrison, 20, of Parkside Street, Rosyth, appeared in the dock at Dunfermline Sheriff Court.

He admitted that on June 3 last year, at Fife Leisure Park, he drove a car carelessly in circles at excessive speeds, lost control and collided with a parked car which in turn struck another parked car, then containing a female, causing damage to all the vehicles.

Harrison had initially been charged with dangerous driving but shortly after the trial started depute fiscal Laura McManus said she would accept a guilty plea to a lesser charge of careless driving.

A witness told the court she was sitting in her car near Carlton Bingo at 5.30pm waiting for friends.

She saw two cars driving into the car park “going quite fast”. Shortly afterwards she saw one of the cars pursuing a man who was on foot, through the car park.

“There was a boy running about having a carry-on. I looked away and shortly afterwards there was a loud bang and a thud,” she went on.

The car parked next to her had been shunted over by Harrison and struck her vehicle. She was unable to get out of the driver’s seat and had to use the passenger side.

Sheriff Alastair Brown said: “It sounds like a case of a boy racer doing donuts in the car park.”

After accepting the guilty plea, the depute told the court Harrison had apologised to the woman after the incident and told her: “We’ve been idiots."

He later told police: “We were being f*****s. My pal was chucking sauce at my car from outside.”

Defence solicitor Andrew Houston said: “He was candidly frank in his assessment of his behaviour. It could be described as horseplay, tomfoolery or rank idiocy.”

The solicitor said his client had since been disqualified for dangerous driving at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

Sheriff Brown fined Harrison £270 and endorsed his licence with five penalty points.

He told Harrison: “You had just held a full licence for nine months at the time. You were an inexperienced driver and an incompetent one.”