Scapegoated passenger 'paid off' to lie to Police

Friday 01 February 2019

A man who took the flak for a car crash he wasn’t responsible for, alleging that he’d been paid off by the driver to lie to Police, has been fined for perverting the course of justice.

Lee Barry Locke (35) appeared in the Magistrate’s Court this week to be sentenced, after he lied to Police about being the driver of a car involved in a crash because he said he’d been “given a lot of money” to do so.

The Court heard that Locke had come over to Jersey to work when he was involved in a late-night car crash on St. John’s Road last August. 

Locke had been a passenger along with another man in the car his employer was driving when the crash happened. Despite only being a passenger, Locke told Police that he was the driver of the vehicle. 

The Court heard that “Locke explained that he’d been driving around the corner and had to swerve as there was a drunk woman in the road".

During the crash, Locke suffered an “injury to his left elbow” which was “bleeding”.

Pictured: Lee Barry Locke lied to the Police by saying he was driving when the car crashed.

The Court was told that Locke does not have a drivers’ licence and a breathalyser test on the evening showed him to be over the drink-drive limit. He reportedly told Police: “You can just arrest me, I don’t have a licence.”

Despite these early admissions of guilt, during interview, the man told Police: “I’ve been given a lot of money to say I was the driver, now you need to prove it.”

It later transpired that “Locke was not in fact the driver of the vehicle”, as his employer admitted he was driving the car when it crashed during his Police interview.

Locke’s employer has also been charged with perverting the course of justice as well as offences relating to the crash, but has since left the island. 

Locke was represented by Advocate Michael Haines who addressed Relief Magistrate Sarah Fitz, presiding, on the defence case. He explained that his client would have been confused on the evening, due to his being drunk and having “hit his head on the window” during the crash.

Pictured: Locke was represented by Defence Advocate Michael Haines who made representations to the Relief Magistrate.

Advocate Haines made the point that “by saying what he was saying, he was in fact implicating himself very seriously in a criminal offence".

The Relief Magistrate remarked that the case was “so unusual” that she could deal with it by way of a financial penalty. She said that “normally perverting the course of justice is seen as a very serious offence”, but because “it was the other individual who started the lie” she would be more lenient. 

Speaking directly to Locke, Relief Magistrate Fitz said: “You weren’t lying to exonerate yourself, you were actually getting yourself into difficulties...” 

The Relief Magistrate then ordered Locke to pay a sum of £750 for the offence, warning that if it weren’t paid, Locke risked spending three weeks in jail.