Court: Donington on Bain man '˜did not know he was banned' from driving

A Donington on Bain man, who was charged with driving while disqualified, has told a court he did not even know he was banned '¨at the time of the offence.

Callum O’Meara, 21, of Meadowcroft, admitted the offence - as well as driving without insurance - when he appeared before magistrates at Skegness on March 29.

The court heard that he was seen driving a Vauxhall Corsa on February 1 by an off duty police officer who spoke to him when he pulled onto a petrol station on the A158 Lincoln Road in Horncastle.

Jim Clare, prosecuting, said O’Meara had been banned from driving for six months under the  totting up procedure in November last year.

Mitigating, Dean Bawer said that when O’Meara had been spoken to by the police, he assumed that  he must still have been disqualified from an offence three years ago  for a ‘document offence’.

He said O’Meara had no knowledge of being banned under the totting up procedure in November and court records showed he had been fined £660  and banned in his absence.

Official papers had been sent to an address O’Meara had left a year before so that he had not even realised  he was being prosecuted.

Magistrates reduced the fine from November from £660 to £180 as the original court would not have  known he was unemployed at the time and adjourned the case for sentence for driving while  disqualified to April 26.

They also called for a report from the  Probation Service.