Crash driver had taken ecstasy and was over drink limit

A DRUG and drink driver injured himself and his passenger when he crashed a friend’s car into a large tree, a court heard.

Banned driver Haseeb Ahmed and a woman were rescued from a Vauxhall Corsa before it caught fire in Mapperley Road, Nottingham, on August 3 last year.

She needed multiple surgeries and was put in a medically induced coma for days because of her life-threatening injuries, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

She is still having treatment for her injuries and is expected to have more surgery but this had been put on hold due to the pandemic.

She describes Ahmed as a “loving and caring person, never wishing to harm anyone”, the court heard, and she wrote to the court saying she forgave him.

Ahmed, 28, of Stockhill Lane, Basford, had a broken leg and extensive fractures. He had no recollection of the collision and could not account for the alcohol and drug findings.

A blood test at the time showed he had consumed both alcohol and ecstasy.

His alcohol level at the time was between 86 and 111 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, so the likely level was 98 milligrammes, the court heard. The limit is 80.

The MDMA level was nearly five times the limit.

He pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving, driving while disqualified, driving without insurance, two charges of driving whilst unfit and the taking of the Corsa, which had been left with him by a friend for safekeeping while she was on holiday.

He has since been diagnosed with a potentially lethal form of cancer and treatment is continuing.

Judge Stuart Rafferty QC told him there were exceptional circumstances in the case.

“I am not sentencing a healthy man, I am sentencing a sick man, an ill man,” he said.

“If you were a well man coming before the court with this record that you have and taking account of the circumstances of this awful collision, you would be going immediately to prison for four years or thereabouts, because this offence comes really right up at the top end of the relevant scale of offences of this kind.”

Ahmed received two years in prison for causing serious injury by dangerous driving, suspended for two years, and a driving ban for five years with a mandatory retest requirement.

Lesser concurrent sentences were imposed for the remaining charges of taking a vehicle without consent, disqualified driving and drug and drinkdriving.

His licence will be endorsed for the excess alcohol and drug driving offences, and driving whilst disqualified.