Third drug driving court date

Convicted Driver Insurance
My friend has had two court dates so far, first he was over for cannabis, had 12 month ban and a fine. Second he was over for cannabis again, 3 year ban a fine and 12 week tagging. He has court again for third drug driving 17 of cocaine, what is the likely outcome. All were when he had a licence and all over an 8 month time scale after passing his test for one year.
 
Depending on the level of Cocaine in his system, and the circumstances of him being stopped, he could be looking at prison or certainly a suspended sentence.
Insurance will be a nightmare for him when he does get to drive again!
 
He had 17 whatever the measurements are, so 7 over the limit of 10? He wasnt impaired, not sure what the reason for them pulling him was. He had a car full of people, it was around 10 at night?
 
I remember now, he had three arrests before he went to court for the first, is that right?
If that is the case he will perhaps avoid prison but should get a community penalty with a drug treatment order. He needs to show the court that he is addressing his drug issues.
 
I think it was two arrests then he had his first court date and while he was waiting for that to come round he had his third. So he wasnt yet disqualified but was aware he had to attend court for his first offence. Ok thank you for your advice I will pass the information on. He mentioned to me that he was thinking about writing a letter to the judge, my fear here is that he would try and justify his actions instead of showing remorse and changed behaviour.
 
He can’t really justify drug driving 3 times in 8 months!He could write a letter for the magistrates but he will need to show remorse, plus show what he is doing himself to take responsibility for his lifestyle and the risk he puts others at.
Usually I would suggest character references to be obtained for the court but the usual “this is very out of character” type references will sound pretty hollow when he has shown a pattern of offending like this!
 
That's exactly what I said to him, he wants to explain his situation as he isnt well and hasnt been for a long while but I tried to explain to him that sounds like he is trying to justify his actions rather than showing remorse. Everyone has problems and a lot of people are not well its doesnt give someone the right to drive with drugs in their system. I think he should steer away from a letter to the judge.
 
The only other advice I would give about the letter is that if he does one, it gives you the chance to look at what he has written.
If he doesn’t do a letter, when the magistrates ask him if there is anything he wants to say, he might fire his mouth of then and do himself no favours.....
 
True. Maby I'll write it for him and let him take a look see. He has two young sons and it would be a real shame if he ended up in prison over Christmas especially.
 
Hi again, an update he has had a change in his court time instead of 10 am it is now 12pm does that mean hes more likely to get a prison sentence? He has also informed me that it was two drugs in his system 17mg of cocaine and 159mg of benzoylecgonine.
 
I would think they have altered the time just to manage the number of people at the court at one time, nothing sinister.
benzoylecgonine is a metabolite of Cocaine, so not actually a different drug. The legal limit for that is 50 against his 159
 
It will just count as one drug driving offence.
It may be indicative of him taking cocaine more than once in the previous 24 hours, one of which was still showing as cocaine and the other one just the metabolite from the first lot of cocaine. (But the metabolite in its own right has a legal limit of 50.
 
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