Anonymous90
Member
Hello,
Two weeks ago, I made a really daft mistake. One that I will certainly regret for a long time. I decided to drive home after having a few pints at a work party.
As I was driving home, the weather got worse and I took a corner too fast, and buried the car into a hedge. As a natural reaction, I phoned my local breakdown and recovery company to come and salvage my vehicle, they turned up about 15 minutes later. They arrived and began to remove the vehicle from the hedge. As they started to remove it, a police vehicle turned up (I was sat in the back of the truck). I've since been told by legal advice that I was too honest with the police. They had no evidence I was even the driver, but I told them I was because I wanted to be on my way, and agreed to give a sample, only to blow 55mg.
My own fault that one, I should have been more careful when at the party to ensure I wasn't over. I've thrown away my clean license and my clean criminal record for the sake of a few drinks. Great.
Anyway, the implications of this for me and my partner are quite big. I probably won't lose my job, as there's no requirement for me to have a license... and truth be told I am still able to get to work albeit with some pain and suffering. There's a perfectly good train station about 2 miles away (nice cycle rides this winter), and I even have a friend willing to take me most days of the week. So, I can't really justify going into the magistrates and begging for mercy when any judge/magistrates will tell me that I can make it to work with a little bit of effort.
Now, here's my worry/problem/concerns. I'm on for a ban, I know that. While it's difficult to take, I have made peace with it. 12 months is what I've been told, but it could be 18 months if they introduce the aggravating factor of the accident and decide that it's worth taking into account when sentencing.
My partner is epileptic. She has 'controlled epilepsy' which means she hasn't had a seizure in a long time and can legally drive.
Epilepsy can always reappear. Her last seizure came nearly 11 months after the one before that (she was weeks away from getting her license). As part of her work with other sufferers of epilepsy, she also knows people who have had epilepsy under control, and yet suffered from seizures after simply changing their diet, or drinking too much coffee or just a bad patch of stress.
We were planning to start a family this year. That will now have to wait, as pregnancies can cause seizures which would result in her losing her license. If she loses her license, neither of us would have a car. We were always aware of this but I suggested that if it happened, I would take her to work in my car, so not a huge amount of harm done.
Of course, with the looming ban.... realistically, she would lose her job, as unlike me, there is no good public transport to her place of work. Losing her job would potentially result in us losing our home, as it's a joint mortgage. If she was lucky, she might be able to find a local job in our town and walk in.
I've also realized that we now cannot visit anywhere with no signal (which in the UK is quite a lot of places, large parts of Wales, Scotland, etc). A tonic-clonic seizure (as she has had in the past) will physically incapacitate her for a good half an hour, even if the actual seizure only lasts for 5 minutes. Even when she does come around, she would be in no fit state to drive and that's assuming she hadn't injured herself in the process. It would be almost impossible to get her to a doctor or hospital.
I'm aware that I've got a pretty weak mitigation here, but this is all I feel I can go in and say to the magistrates. I'm not expecting to be let off, but do they do shorter sentences for people with dependencies? I would probably be chuffed with 12 months + a course to be fair, which would take it down to 9. Obviously a huge fine and a lesser ban would also be good (which I've heard used in rare cases).
Anyway, some advice would be great.
Thanks.
Two weeks ago, I made a really daft mistake. One that I will certainly regret for a long time. I decided to drive home after having a few pints at a work party.
As I was driving home, the weather got worse and I took a corner too fast, and buried the car into a hedge. As a natural reaction, I phoned my local breakdown and recovery company to come and salvage my vehicle, they turned up about 15 minutes later. They arrived and began to remove the vehicle from the hedge. As they started to remove it, a police vehicle turned up (I was sat in the back of the truck). I've since been told by legal advice that I was too honest with the police. They had no evidence I was even the driver, but I told them I was because I wanted to be on my way, and agreed to give a sample, only to blow 55mg.
My own fault that one, I should have been more careful when at the party to ensure I wasn't over. I've thrown away my clean license and my clean criminal record for the sake of a few drinks. Great.Anyway, the implications of this for me and my partner are quite big. I probably won't lose my job, as there's no requirement for me to have a license... and truth be told I am still able to get to work albeit with some pain and suffering. There's a perfectly good train station about 2 miles away (nice cycle rides this winter), and I even have a friend willing to take me most days of the week. So, I can't really justify going into the magistrates and begging for mercy when any judge/magistrates will tell me that I can make it to work with a little bit of effort.
Now, here's my worry/problem/concerns. I'm on for a ban, I know that. While it's difficult to take, I have made peace with it. 12 months is what I've been told, but it could be 18 months if they introduce the aggravating factor of the accident and decide that it's worth taking into account when sentencing.
My partner is epileptic. She has 'controlled epilepsy' which means she hasn't had a seizure in a long time and can legally drive.
Epilepsy can always reappear. Her last seizure came nearly 11 months after the one before that (she was weeks away from getting her license). As part of her work with other sufferers of epilepsy, she also knows people who have had epilepsy under control, and yet suffered from seizures after simply changing their diet, or drinking too much coffee or just a bad patch of stress.
We were planning to start a family this year. That will now have to wait, as pregnancies can cause seizures which would result in her losing her license. If she loses her license, neither of us would have a car. We were always aware of this but I suggested that if it happened, I would take her to work in my car, so not a huge amount of harm done.
Of course, with the looming ban.... realistically, she would lose her job, as unlike me, there is no good public transport to her place of work. Losing her job would potentially result in us losing our home, as it's a joint mortgage. If she was lucky, she might be able to find a local job in our town and walk in.
I've also realized that we now cannot visit anywhere with no signal (which in the UK is quite a lot of places, large parts of Wales, Scotland, etc). A tonic-clonic seizure (as she has had in the past) will physically incapacitate her for a good half an hour, even if the actual seizure only lasts for 5 minutes. Even when she does come around, she would be in no fit state to drive and that's assuming she hadn't injured herself in the process. It would be almost impossible to get her to a doctor or hospital.
I'm aware that I've got a pretty weak mitigation here, but this is all I feel I can go in and say to the magistrates. I'm not expecting to be let off, but do they do shorter sentences for people with dependencies? I would probably be chuffed with 12 months + a course to be fair, which would take it down to 9. Obviously a huge fine and a lesser ban would also be good (which I've heard used in rare cases).
Anyway, some advice would be great.
Thanks.
