Judge gives banned driver from Chapel St Leonards 'one further opportunity'

Lee Langlands, 41, of Sunningdale Close, Chapel St Leonards, admitted driving while disqualified and without insurance when he appeared before District Judge Peter Veits sitting at Boston Magistrates Court, having previously denied the offences.

Prosecuting, Marie Stace said that police found him driving his Ford Transit van in Sunningdale Close on April 7 last year and that he was in breach of a suspended sentence order that had been imposed on March 2.

Mitigating, Mark Hudson said Langlands had a history of driving while under a ban and that in this case it had been less than two weeks since he had been given a suspended sentence and that he accepted he could go to prison.

Asking the judge to give him 'one further opportunity', he said Langlands had not been in trouble since this incident last year and that he had now moved in with his partner, had two children each and was in part time employment and was now 'settled down'.

Judge Veits said it had been a 'difficult choice to make' but that references he had produced 'showed a different side' of him.

He gave him a further suspended prison sentence of 20 weeks suspended for a year and extended the life of the previous suspended sentence to run alongside it, making a total of 36 weeks in custody if it is broken.

He was also ordered to undertake 100 hours of unpaid work, banned him from driving for a further two years and ordered him to pay a total of £213 in court costs and charges.

“You've had your chances, don't do it again,” the judge told Langlands.