Drunk driver told he was “a cyclist’s worst nightmare” by judge who jailed him

not always, I certainly know of cases where a banned driver was caught driving, and they simply gave them a longer ban, believe they used the custodial sentence would put the family in poverty as the banned driver was the familys only earner get out of jail free card.

I think "driving while disqualified" rarely gets a prison sentence

I would like to see it being automatic, in fact I would take it further, I would jail them for the duration of the ban (not the remaining time). I believe the courts should be able to assume (not a great word in legal terms I'm sure) that they have been driving since start and the public have a right to be safe from them for the time prescribed by the court therefore locking them down for that time is the only way to ensure that happens.

Fairly Draconian I know but they have treated the courts instructions with contempt

When I started practising in criminal law, a prison sentence for driving while disqualified was almost always inevitable.  By the time I quit practising crime almost 25 years later, a prison sentence for driving while disqualified was a rarity.  
During that same time, driving while disqualified seems to have become much more prevalent.  There can't possibly be a link, can there??

The ban starts after they leave prison though.

hirsute wrote:

The ban starts after they leave prison though.

Ah, does it? I was wondering - the ban is a farce anyway (personally I'm in favour of a five year ban first DD offence, life ban second) but if he could see out part of his ban while in prison that would be ludicrous. Good to know he'll have to do the full ban. Hopefully his insurance will be so prohibitive anyway after this it will act as a de facto longer ban.

Yep, the law was changed about ten years ago precisely because the old way of doing it was indeed a farce.

Ban starts on release.  Although that's not the same point as when the sentence is finished, as (with a few exceptions) everyone is released at the halfway point.

In this case that's seventeen months behind bars.  Unlike the cyclist, who gets to keep his bar (and the scars, and the limp, and the nagging pain, and the arthritis etc) for the rest of their life.

For reasons which have never made any sense to me at all, the Court of Appeal has always hated lifetime bans, and been pretty unhappy against long bans.  They seem to think that there should always be a chance that the driver should be allowed to drive again in the future (even though their track record might suggest to the rest of us that this would be a Bad Idea).  Presumably because they think that the miscreant will just flout the ban without that future "carrot" dangling in front of them.  Instead of just flouting the ban anyway, like far too many do.

lifeonabike wrote:

I laways wonder in these cases, who, if anyone compensates the victim? Maybe start with selling the c*nts 'powerful' BMW and giving the proceeds to the poor guy who's leg was shattered.

The insurance will pay, and the driver will never be able to afford to insure another BMW.  But he clearly didn't learn from his first conviction, so should be banned for life.  It's only luck that he didn't kill the cyclist.

the little onion wrote:

so, despite prior drink driving convictions, three times over the limit, then seriously injuring a cyclist, he "was banned for driving for three years".

 

F***s sake - that's worth at least a decade off the road, surely. What possible mitigation can there be for such a light punishment?

I think you may have misconstrued the judge's comments, which were in fact given in mitigation. Given the seriousness of the offence, were it not for the fact that he also hit a cyclist, he could have expected a heavier penalty.