Motorist jailed for gas-and-dash

A motorist who had previously been banned from driving for life has been sentenced to six months in jail following a gas-and-dash at a St. Catharines gas station.

The sentence will be served concurrently to the 16-month jail term Robert Hannah received after pleading guilty earlier this month to a slew of driving and property offences committed in Hamilton.

In the Hamilton matters, the 26-yearold pleaded guilty to seven counts of driving while disqualified as well as dangerous driving and failing to remain at the scene of an accident.

“You have no business being behind the wheel of a motor vehicle,” Judge Cameron Watson said Wednesday in Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines.

“Every time you get behind the wheel of a car it appears that you roll the dice and risk killing somebody. I suggest to you, sir, that if you continue to do so at some point the dice is going to come up against you and you will end up killing somebody.”

Hannah on Wednesday pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while prohibited in connection with the Feb. 13 gas-and-dash.

Assistant Crown attorney Sean Doherty told the judge the defendant had previously been prohibited from driving for life due to several convictions for impaired driving-related offences.

Defence counsel Vikram Singh said Hannah turned to drugs in late 2019 after he discovered he was 22 hours short of receiving government benefits and was unable to buy Christmas gifts for his child.

“He relapsed into narcotics, using crystal meth and cocaine.”

The relapse resulted in a series of similar crimes committed over a month in both Niagara and Hamilton.

“I accept that this offence is part and parcel of a series of offences that can loosely be characterized as a crime spree, which would warrant a concurrent sentence,” the judge said.