Fraudster ignored driving ban

A CONVICTED fraudster is behind bars after flouting a driving ban in Runcorn.

James Lee Roberts, 29, of Boundary Farm Road, Liverpool, was stopped while behind the wheel of a car on Sandy Lane in Weston Point at 1.20pm on October 1.

Ian Criddle, prosecuting at Chester Crown Court last Thursday, said Roberts immediately pulled over and, while sat in the driving seat, told the officers: ‘I’m not driving’.

He admitted he was banned from the road and said in interview that he had bought the car three weeks earlier.

Mr Criddle said Roberts had multiple convictions, mainly for dishonesty and breaching court orders.

He was sentenced to three years in prison on July 20, 2017, for fraud, and then shortly after his release, on October 31, 2018, he was sentenced to 20 months in prison, suspended for two years, for conspiracy to commit fraud over an income tax assessment.

Roberts was disqualified from driving for six months on July 19, but breached the ban and received a community order on

August 14 with a rehabilitation requirement.

When he was caught on Sandy Lane on October 1, he was also driving without insurance.

The offences breached his suspended sentence and his community order.

He pleaded guilty to driving disqualified, without insurance and the suspended sentence breach in magistrates’ court on

October 24.

David Watson, defending, said Roberts said he was driving because he needed to take his partner to hospital for an appointment.

He said he deserved credit for his guilty pleas and should also have his prison term reduced because of time served on a curfew.

Roberts’s offending had stemmed from ‘drug issues in relation to cocaine’, he added.

Judge Patrick Thompson reduced the 20 months suspended sentence due to the guilty pleas and the time served on curfew.

He sentenced Roberts to 15 months in prison and banned him from driving for 19.5 months.

Sending Roberts down, the judge said: “This is the second time you’ve committed offences during the currency of your suspended sentence order.

“When you receive that order, you would have been told by the judge that if you committed further offences you would be likely to go to prison.

“The suspended sentence order is what is says on the tin I’m afraid.

“You came before the court on August 14 for driving disqualified, a very serious offence.

“You were given a chance, you really were given a chance, but I’m afraid within really six months of being given that chance, there you were, driving disqualified and there’s no insurance. “They’re offences viewed very seriously by this court.

“The court has no option but to invoke the suspended sentence.”