Crown Court Judge Finds Special Reasons for not Endorsing Licence and Gives an Absolute Discharge to Woman Charged with Dangerous Driving for Driving Wrong Way Down Dual Carriageway!

This driver, represented by barrister Harry Bowyer, was driving down a dual carriageway late at night when the police stopped the traffic. The driver’s profoundly autistic child, aged 16 was in the car. The traffic was stopped for over a hour. The driver’s daughter, easily triggered by noise and unusual situations began to react to passing motorcycles and the children of an idiot driver who had let them out onto the dual carriageway. The driver approached the police officer who had stopped the traffic to allow her to be escorted either forward or backwards as she was afraid that her daughter, who by now was having a full “melt down” would escape the car, risking harm to herself and others. The officer whilst sympathetic could do nothing! The driver rang her husband to call 101 to get help, again to no avail. The driver, driven to her wits end, told the officer that she was going to drive back down the lane left for the emergency services and did so when the traffic began to move again- she executed a U turn and re-joined the traffic. A driver in the queue submitted a dashcam video to the police.

The police charged the driver with dangerous driving. The driver did not qualify for legal aid owing to her income and contacted SBC. SBC wrote to the CPS before the first appearance in the Magistrates’ Court explaining the circumstances of the offence along with evidence asking them to consider a plea to careless driving (The driver whilst not qualifying for Legal Aid was strapped for cash as parents of autistic children often are and desperately needed to avoid the mandatory disqualification imposed for dangerous driving as her position would have been unsupportable without a driving licence). The CPS decided to continue with the allegation of Dangerous Driving. The defendant elected Crown Court Trial.

A different reviewing lawyer and sympathetic prosecution counsel at the Crown Court accepted the plea to careless driving. The case was put off to argue special reasons not to endorse her licence.

The Judge who heard her evidence found that she was an honest and credible witness and accepted her evidence in its entirety. He accepted that she was in an impossible situation and found special reasons not to endorse her licence and imposed an absolute discharge by way of disposal.