Mitigating Circumstance

Convicted Driver Insurance

Ted_D

New Member
Hi,

I've never posted on a forum before, let alone a forum of this subject. However I had quite an unfortunate experience on Saturday night. My brother and myself drove from Leeds to wales for a weekend seeing mutual friend (who had moved his life there to renovate an old farm house). the Friday night was short (it was a long drive to the destination), so we packed it in and called it a night.
Our mutual friend had bought an old farm house, in the middle of the welsh countryside, no neighbours, no phone signal, no internet, miles and miles of single track road, but a cracking view of the sea. the house was in a state of construction (basically a full blown building site).

I knew our mutual friend was somewhat emotionally unstable, but we went to support him in his new venture.

on the Saturday afternoon after a few pints at the bar, our friend started to get quite aggressive towards my brother (un provoked), this escalated over a few hours, until the decision to call it a night and get a taxi back to the house was decided, you know, go home go to bed!.

once back at the house, the situation turned for the worst, and I feared for not only my well being, but the life of my brother as at this point, the "mutual friend" started to violently assault my brother, and with all sorts of weapons around (tools of the trade) no phone signal, and I didn't quite know where we were , no neighbours (it was in a remote area of wales), I made the decision to pick my brother up off the floor, and throw him in the back of the car to escape. I knew id been drinking, but the life of me and my brother was more important than my licence at this point.

I drove down the country lanes carefully, and it took 10 - 15 minutes before I found somewhere safe to pull the car over (like I said, not easy in that part of wales)

just before pulling over, I clipped the car on a wall, and pulled immediately over (again single track lanes for miles, not easy)

my brother and I now shocked, scared and traumered from our experience we had just run from, got out of the car. that's when a police van pulled up behind me, and gave my the breathalyser test (I was not driving the car when Police came, and I certainly was not in it)

I blew a 73, and was taken to the police station. and as it was 12 pm, and I had asked for a solicitor to be in attendance, our interview was delayed until 10 pm the next morning. they didn't really care about our well being or for the situation we had just experienced, my brother had visibly injuries to his head and side.

knowing I did not intestinally get in the car, I did it in an extreme situation, where I had no other choice but to escape.

Ive been called to court in 2 weeks time, I've enlisted the help of a very expensive lawyer, as I need help to explain my situation. It could have got so much worse, and my brother or myself could have ended up with life changing injuries, or even worse, you just don't know.

I hope that I can battle through this, I have a good career ahead of me, and cannot afford to laydown and accept It.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Ted
 
Hi Ted,

Sorry to hear that, it sounds like a very traumatic experience.

There is a defence to DD of necessity to avoid injury. The problem is that you need to drive only as far as to get away from the immediate threat. Unless you have a good reason why you had to drive such a distance, presumably many miles, it is difficult to see why most of that journey was necessary.

The court inevitably has to weigh up the fact you were placing other road users at risk of injury as well.

When you say you clipped a wall pulling into a safe place was it very obviously a good place to stop, and much better than any before it? Stopping as soon as possible is an important part to the defence of necessity.

DD is referred to as a strict liability offence which means you don't have to have intent (often called mens rea in court). Simply, that means that the court will assess your actions on what you should have known at the time, rather than what you were actually thinking. You need to insofar as is possible try and judge your actions on that basis.

Whether you and your brother were given correct medical treatment isn't relevant to the offence, as you still managed to give a sample.

I think you need to ask your expensive lawyer what argument he is planning on using. DD is a notoriously difficult charge to defend against in a simple case like this because the CPS need only prove you were driving, and that the breath reading is reliable. The police use a form when taking the breath reading so it is rare for mistakes to be made there.

Unless the court accepts the defence of necessity then even if they are sympathetic they are obliged to ban you for a minimum of twelve months, although normally you would expect about 19 months, reduced by 25% if you are offered and take the DD course. For a contested trial (where you plead not guilty) if you lose the CPS will ask for £620 in costs rather than £85, so it can be expensive.
 
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