As part of a drink driving crackdown, two men have been banned from driving when they appeared before magistrates over the past week.
Rajinder Singh Rathore was disqualified from driving for 44 months while Nicholas David Matthews from Harrogate was banned for three years.
Rathore, aged 56 and of Montagu Gardens in Leeds, was arrested following a road traffic collision on the A59 at Kex Gill Moor near Otley on 20 May 2014.
Officers came across his Jaguar X-Type which had come off the road and down a banking. Rathore claimed he hadn’t been driving at the time and said it was his passenger who had been at the wheel, despite the officer at the scene seeing him get out of the vehicle’s driver’s door.
Rathore maintained his story throughout court proceedings but was found guilty of drink driving at Skipton Magistrates’ Court on Monday 15 August 2014.
He was almost three times the drink drive limit at the time of the incident.
In addition to his 44-month ban, Rathore was also fined £500, ordered to undertake 30 hours community service, and must observe a 37-day curfew between the hours of 10pm and 6pm.
Matthews, aged 36 and of Crossways Crescent, Harrogate, was almost five times over the drink drive limit when officers stopped his Fiat Punto outside his home address on 21 August 2014.
Matthews pleaded guilty to drink driving at Harrogate Magistrates’ Court on 11 September 2014. In addition to his three-year driving ban, the court ordered him to complete a stop binge drinking course and sentenced him to 180 hours unpaid work.
Traffic Sergeant Paul Cording, of North Yorkshire Police’s Roads Policing Group, said: In both these cases it is extremely fortunate that nobody was seriously injured or even killed.
Driving with any alcohol in your system is dangerous, however these two defendants were well over the legal limit and they are lucky they didn’t hurt themselves or anybody else.
Mr Rathore’s reluctance to accept responsibility for his actions, has resulted in an unnecessarily long court process and has cost the tax payer more money. However, the length of his ban is an appropriate punishment and goes to show that the police and the courts are determined to prosecute drink drivers.
Hopefully these long driving bans will serve as a warning to anyone who thinks that drink driving is acceptable.
If you suspect anyone of driving while under the influence of drink or drugs, please contact North Yorkshire Police on 101 – select option 1 – and pass information to the Force Control Room.
If you prefer not to give your name, Crimestoppers can be contacted anonymously on 0800 555 111.
