Banned driver jailed after speeding away from police on A16

Martin Richard Thompson, 30, who was living at Willoughby Road in Alford at the time but has since moved to Walsoken in Wisbech, admitted failing to stop for the police, driving while disqualified and without insurance, driving under the influence of drugs, and the fraudulent use of a vehicle registration number.

Prosecuting at Boston Magistrates’ Court last week, Marie Stace said Thompson was seen driving his Ford Fiesta on the A16 on August 6 last year at 9.45pm and officers recognised the car was displaying a false number plate.

She said they stopped the vehicle but as they went to it, the car, driven by Thompson, accelerated away and eventually had to be stopped at Wyberton by use of the ‘stinger’ device, which deflates the tyres, forcing the driver to stop.

She said Thompson provided a positive drugs wipe, which showed he had 3.1 grammes of cannabis in his system, the legal limit being two, and he was identified as having been disqualified from driving in June and having no insurance for the car.

He told the police he had panicked when he was stopped because he knew he was a banned driver.

He admitted he had changed the number of his vehicle to that of a similar one he had seen.

The magistrates were told he had been given a suspended prison sentence and banned from driving for nine months in June 2019.

Mitigating, Andrew Cogan said Thompson recognised just how stupid he had been to accept the encouragements of the other people in the car with him.

He said Thompson had panicked when he saw the blue lights behind him.

He asked the magistrates not to impose the suspended prison sentence which he said was for a totally different type of offence, but they told Thompson it had been ‘made very clear’ to him that the suspended sentence had been his ‘last chance’.

Thompson was sent to prison for three months, banned from driving for 18 months and ordered to pay a £120 victim surcharge on his release from prison.