Expected sentence? Help

Convicted Driver Insurance

UKMAN1210

Member
I was just wondering what people think what my sentence might be next month?


Brief Description of Offence:
Drove to friends house for counselling due to feeling suicidal (1 mile away from house) after drinking and taking sleeping pills, crashed into parked cars. Was taken to hospital and treated for injuries.

Breath Alcohol Level and Reading Type:
N/A

Mitigating Factors:
Clinically depressed, suicidal, on medication, VERY remorseful, polite and co-operative with officers and hospital staff, admitted i had been drinking, early hours during week night, no one around, short distance, no passengers, fully insured, spoke to NHS nurses after getting released provided by the police, provided road side breath test and spoke to a legal aid on the phone at station, they said they would come down but they didnt and i was interviewed without it.

Aggravating Factors:
Failed to supply blood sample due to feeling sick after the accident, (they didnt ask me to do a urine sample after, they just wrote it down straight away as fail to supply) crashed into parked cars, previous drink driving offence in 3 years.

I am planning on getting legal representation and getting as many character witnesses as possible (friends family, doctors) As well as getting counselling.

Your thoughts?

Thanks
 
It doesn't sound like a custodial sentence would be considered, although it's possible a low level community sentence may be imposed.
 
Agreed that prison will not be an option and a 3 year ban is likely, perhaps even 3.5 years.
you could save your money on a solicitor by presenting your mitigation and character references to the court yourself.
Spend less than the solicitor cost on the Drink Drive Rehabilitation Course which will reduce your ban by up to 25%. It has to be offered and accepted in court so make a note to ask for it if the magistrates do not offer it. Once your case is finished, it cannot be offered.
 
OK cheers everybody.

But can the Drink Drive Rehabilitation Course be offered again if I have already done it the first time?
 
Yes, we get quite a few people doing the course for a second time, but some magistrates are reluctant to offer it.
If it is not offered, you could ask to be allowed to go on it, You could explain that perhaps you were not in a proper frame of mind to absorb all the information and would now benefit from doing it again.
 
I spoke to a solicitor over the phone who specialises in drink drive cases.

He said that I could be facing prison and that I won't get a duty solicitor on the day. Is he just saying that so I go with him? He was wanting to charge me £1800 for the pleasure.
 
Quite frankly that is disgraceful.
The duty solicitor is at every court to give advice to people who are not represented. BUT, as the solicitor you spoke to is correct, usually does not include drink drivers because the solicitor will only be paid the Legal Aid rate for representing someone in court if Certain conditions are met.
HOWEVER, one of those conditions is that you can be represented by the duty solicitor if there is a significant risk of custody.
So he is telling you that you need him because you could go to prison (which is technically correct as the magistrates are allowed to consider that in your circumstances) but saying that you will not be able to use the duty solicitor, who is there to represent people at risk of custody (free) so you need to pay HIM £1800 !!!!
it is not guaranteed that the duty solicitor will represent you, he may be too busy with other more serious cases, or just offer you advice as to what you should say in court yourself but you can have notes prepared ready for this happened.

The only benefit of paying a specialist solicitor is if it is felt that there are procedural errors by the police that can get you found ’not guilty’. If everything was straight forward then you do NOT need a specialist solicitor (or any solicitor for that), any solicitor can put forward mitigation for you, they will be used to doing that for a range of offences and no specialist knowledge of drink driving is required. Clients on drink drive rehabilitation courses tell me that they pay about £3-400 for this service.
 
Quite frankly that is disgraceful.
The duty solicitor is at every court to give advice to people who are not represented. BUT, as the solicitor you spoke to is correct, usually does not include drink drivers because the solicitor will only be paid the Legal Aid rate for representing someone in court if Certain conditions are met.
HOWEVER, one of those conditions is that you can be represented by the duty solicitor if there is a significant risk of custody.
So he is telling you that you need him because you could go to prison (which is technically correct as the magistrates are allowed to consider that in your circumstances) but saying that you will not be able to use the duty solicitor, who is there to represent people at risk of custody (free) so you need to pay HIM £1800 !!!!
it is not guaranteed that the duty solicitor will represent you, he may be too busy with other more serious cases, or just offer you advice as to what you should say in court yourself but you can have notes prepared ready for this happened.

The only benefit of paying a specialist solicitor is if it is felt that there are procedural errors by the police that can get you found ’not guilty’. If everything was straight forward then you do NOT need a specialist solicitor (or any solicitor for that), any solicitor can put forward mitigation for you, they will be used to doing that for a range of offences and no specialist knowledge of drink driving is required. Clients on drink drive rehabilitation courses tell me that they pay about £3-400 for this service.
 
Based on my extensive knowledge of drink driving cases over many years, you will not get a custodial sentence for this.
i was just saying that the solicitor was correct in saying, in theory, that you could go to prison, but in practice he is scaremongering because it it most unlikely to happen.
When you do not go to prison you would pay him your £1800 and think he is marvellous for helping you to avoid....... something that was not really going to happen anyway!
 
I thought that might be the case, just thought I would get others opinions on it. Thanks.

One more question, what do you think would be the best defence would be to go with? I am going to plead guilty. But i dont really have a good reason for declining a blood sample. I just said no (mainly because i was genuinely feeling sick in the hospital bed) but i didnt explain that. I just said no and he wrote it down to failure to supply. I was very friednly and co operative through out and did provide a road side sample. But i know that it is not a defence.
 
You will not be submitting a defence, you will be pleading guilty and submitting mitigation.
i will PM you tomorrow about this, things still to do this evening.....
 
Well all went fine yesterday, got 3 year ban with option to knock 25% off with course.

£250 and a 12 month community order.
 
Enter code DRINKDRIVING10 during checkout for 10% off
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