Disqualified driver gets longer ban over "moment of stupidity"

Friday 27 January 2023

A 24-year-old disqualified driver - whose ban was supposed to lift last week - has been forbidden from getting behind the wheel for even longer after a "moment of stupidity".

Lino Steven Freitas de Jesus was sentenced to 100 hours of community service – and banned from driving for another year - in the Magistrate's Court this week.

The Court heard that de Jesus had been banned from the roads for 14 months in December 2021, after being caught driving without insurance.

But at 09:25 on 23 October last year he was seen driving along Bagatelle Road in St. Saviour towards Five Oaks roundabout.

He admitted driving while disqualified and without insurance.

Advocate Sarah Dale, defending, said that her client was recently bereaved and that a prison term would have a damaging emotional impact on him.

Arguing for a community sentence, she also explained that he had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.

"He was late for work on the day in question. It was because of his wish not to let others down that he made the foolish decision to take his car," he said. "He knows he was wrong to prioritise his work over the law."

De Jesus’s previous driving ban would have ended last week but Assistant Magistrate Peter Harris told him: "By a moment of stupidity you have knocked that back by another 12 months."

He also ordered him to retake the driving test after the new ban finishes.