► DRIFT is only one of a handful of directional dark matter detectors. ► A method of rejecting Radon Progeny Recoils, DRIFT’s main background, is discussed. ► Additionally DRIFT-IId was found to run stably with a mixture of CS2 and CF4. ► DRIFT’s sensitivity is orders of magnitude better than other directional detectors. Data are presented from the DRIFT-IId detector operated in the Boulby Underground Science Facility in England. A 0.8m3 fiducial volume, containing partial pressures of 30Torr CS2 and 10Torr CF4, was exposed for a duration of 47.4 live-time days with sufficient passive shielding to provide a neutron free environment within the detector. The nuclear recoil events seen are consistent with a remaining low-level background from the decay of radon daughters attached to the central cathode of the detector. However, charge from such events must drift across the entire width of the detector, and thus display large diffusion upon reaching the readout planes of the device. Exploiting this feature, it is shown to be possible to reject energy depositions from these Radon Progeny Recoil events while still retaining sensitivity to fiducial-volume nuclear recoil events. The response of the detector is then interpreted, using the F nuclei content of the gas, in terms of sensitivity to proton spin-dependent WIMP–nucleon interactions, displaying a minimum in sensitivity cross section at 1.8pb for a WIMP mass of 100GeV/c2. This sensitivity was achieved without compromising the direction sensitivity of DRIFT.