Been disqualified every year for the last 18 years.
His solicitor says he's a likeable idiot - wonder what the boy of 12 he mowed down while doing a getaway thinks?
Deport him to Sark or at least London where he won't make any difference
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/5216422.stm
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Tealeaf and smackhead... idiot probably, likeable probably not.
However one must sympathise with his 'addiction' to cars. Perhaps the NHS can put him on 50cc motorbikes as a reduction regime?
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Or make him drive a Kangoo.
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It's good to know that if I get disqualified I can get caught driving fortysomething times before I get banged up. I'll remember that.
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I can assure you that is truly exceptional. Most would probably manage it no more than twice, three times maximum before being imprisoned.
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Only 5 months?
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IanS
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Maximum sentence for DWD is 6 months, less presumably some credit for an early guilty plea.
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addicted to driving??? sounds like Mr Toad
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Temporarily not a student, where did the time go???
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TheCriminal Injustice System lives up to its name. A dangerous driver is allowed to offend 40 times before being jailed. He has only killed one person.. probably by luck that it's not more.. and he'll be out soon on parole...
madf
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Where does it say that he killed anyone? He ran someone over, apparently not fatally as it would have been even more surprising that he had not been jailed.
Nor has anyone suggested that his driving in the current instance was dangerous - he was seen parking a car, which most of us do - the key difference is that he has been forbidden by the Courts from holding a licence and he was driving in contravention of that. Had he been driving dangerously, the likelihood is that he would have been prosecuted for that, dangerous driving carrying a 2-year maximum sentence.
(It's quite possible, albeit unlikely, that he has never contravened the Highway Code in his life as drivers are routinely disqualified for driving without insurance and a licence, rather than because their actual driving was in any way substandard.)
Incidentally DWD is a summary-only offence that can only be dealt with by the Magistrates' Court and so he will automatically be given early release after 2 1/2 months, so no parole as such.
I'm playing devil's advocate a little bit in that clearly this man has a problem with authority and therefore shouldn't be on the road until he can accept all of its rules, but it is not fair to say on the evidence before you that he has actually driven dangerously at all, let alone killed someone.
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"It's quite possible, albeit unlikely, that he has never contravened the Highway Code in his life"
Yeah sure. He was a get-away-driver!
A get-away-driver that doesn't contravene the highway code won't be getting much repeat business.
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addicted to driving??? sounds like Mr Toad>>
From the photo, looks like Mr Toad too!
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IanS
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Once he is released (again!) do you think he will stop driving and abide by his banning order?
I doubt it.
If the maximum punishment is 6 months, then he will care little about getting caught again. Only if he was caught a multiple of times and the sentences were made consecutive, rather than concurrent, would he be able to be kept off the road for a reasonable length of time. What other option is there?
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Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
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If he drives again, it is highly likely that his face will be known and he will be jailed again. It is certainly possible to do 10 years in three-month stretches for driving whilst disqualified with only a few days on the outside in between. In those cases, prisoners can be every bit as institutionalised as those who do one long sentence (but would receive none of the support prior to release as they last saw the outside world a few months ago).
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If he is driving whilst disqualified, I assume he is therefore uninsured. By definition.
I restate: a Proper run Justice System would recognise the man is a potential menace - bourne out by his track record and frequent re-offending and enusre the public are not endangered either physically or financially.
As for the police being able to recognise him, maybe so.. But on that argument we should not jail people who Watch child pornography (as they do no harm to anyone), or drunks who are incapable etc..
Respect for the law is low: this case shows why imo...
madf
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So here we have someone who cares nothing for either the law or other people's safety. He is prepared to drive with no license and no insurance time after time. If a 12 year gets in his way when he is driving away from yet another crime he is quite prepared to mow him down.
Why can't we give him a free drop through a trapdoor with a restraint tied tightly round his neck?
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Didn't take long (in fact I think it's a record) for someone to suggest the Death Penalty.
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And why not? He has had 18 years of continuous recorded lawbreaking. He has already injured one roaduser that we know of. All 5 months (if he serves that long) in prison will do is teach him a few more tricks. In all honesty I cannot see him being released and turning into a paragon of virtue.
Why should my taxes be wasted on a lost cause? No doubt he will be accepted onto a drug rehabilitation course and any other "freebie" that his lawyer can think up. No doubt this will involve councillors, probation officers, legal aid and all the usual do-gooders. No doubt he will cost the taxpayer another few thousand pounds. He is obviously not going to stop driving, illegally of course. How long before he kills someone? Why take the risk?
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I actually thought you were joking.
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Why should my taxes be wasted on a lost cause? No doubt he will be accepted onto a drug rehabilitation course and any other "freebie" that his lawyer can think up. No doubt this will involve councillors, probation officers, legal aid and all the usual do-gooders. No doubt he will cost the taxpayer another few thousand pounds. He is obviously not going to stop driving, illegally of course. How long before he kills someone? Why take the risk?
Leaving aside your enthusiasm for the noose, there are very good reasons for drug rehab etc.
Those who come out of prison have historically a scarily high reoffending rate -- not entirely surprisingly, given that they used to leave with all the same problems that they went with, and were now graduates of a system which tended to brutalise people, having spent their time living with other criminals, and coming out to broken families and negligible careers prospects.
Getting prisoners off drugs is a good start, at reducing reoffending levels and doing something about the very high levels of illiteracy is another. But the prison service says that it's nigh impossible to do much with these people in less than a year.
Five months in jail for this guy is probably a waste of time: it's just expensive warehousing. I guess he'll be back out driving again at the end of it all :(
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EAsy Peasy this one.
Give him a car & Insure him.
just make sure the car has a caravan permanently fixed on the back
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Now Wheels,
I am not enthusiastic for the noose or any other form of capital punishment. I am even less enthusiastic about leaving the vast majority of the public at the mercy of someone with no social concience, no regard for law and order and with a history of totally disregarding the safety of others.
P U,
No, not joking.
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If he has been given a lighter sentence for an early plea it's a rather perverse sentencing decision given that he has 18 years of continuous contempt for the law. It seems to be rewarding a cynical approach to the guidelines - thereby undermiing them.
I assume that PU and David HM (who, let's be clear, are not standing up for this idiot) can sense the frustration felt by the "ordinary person" when they see the imbalance between his outstandingly reckless behaviour and punishment he has received.
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Short answer is: they have to give credit for an early guilty plea, even when there's no prospect of an acquittal at Trial.
On the other hand, if they gave no credit, then he'd have nothing at all to lose by pleading not guilty, dragging it out, hoping that the CPS screws up (unlikely but not quite impossible) and delaying the eventual jail sentence. Even then, he's been given close to the maximum sentence possible. The fact is that taking this to Trial would merely increase the cost to the public purse and leave him on the streets for longer.
Even if he were remanded prior to conviction, he'd get more favourable treatment on remand than as a convicted prisoner and the time on remand taken off his sentence. Of course this one idiot having a Trial wouldn't make much difference - but if every accused had nothing to lose by taking it to Trial, the Courts would be even more clogged and expensive than they are now.
Incidentally, looking at the article there's no implication that this is his first imprisonment and therefore no "finally" about it despite the thread title; more likely is that he spends more time inside prison than out.
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The solution to which is giving the sentencing judge the option of an extra loading to the standard tariff for defendants whose attitude to the law is exceptionally arrogant.
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This might make you angry but doing it that way round would almost certainly be incompatible with the Human Rights Act as effectively, you would be punishing people for something that is not a crime. (It is not contempt of court as I have no doubt that this defendant is quiet and resigned to his fate when in court so no disrespect is shown in person).
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Where is the "3 strikes and you're out" system as touted by Mr Blunkett and the "tough on crime etc" by Mr Blair?
A cynical disregard shown by the legal system for our politician's wishes?
(I jest badly.. )
madf
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"Then, a few years ago, he got addicted to heroin, but it's the cars he's really hooked on. He just doesn't understand the words 'don't drive'."
So ....... what will he understand? Removing the necessary body parts comes to mind.
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What if I walked the streets carrying an offensive weapon? I doubt I'd get away with it for 20 years and when I was sentenced it wouldn't be 5 months.
Asserting his human right to be danger to the public on the streets on a continuous basis for nearly 20 years is a nonsense, but I suspect we will soon be departing the field of motoring so probably best we agree to disagree.
It doesn't make me angry it makes me despair.
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I understand he is a habitual drug user. So I assume he has been tested for drugs when previously charged for driving when unlicensed and uninsured?
I also understand police are supposed to "target" habitual criminals to remove them from the streets to make the country safer for the rest of us.
So he has been arrested every year and disqualfied every year.. since 1988 (So the DT says) .. and may never failed a drugs test or he should have got more than 5 months? (or was he ever given one?)
Seems to me there is more to the story than meets the eye..
madf
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