Driver 16 times over drugs limit crashed into supermarket
A DRUGGED-UP driver crashed into a supermarket before careering down a main road and colliding with a concrete traffic island, a court has heard.
Subsequent blood tests showed Ahmed Yusuf was 16 times over the legal limit for benzoylecogonine – a substance formed in the body as it breaks down cocaine.
Swansea Crown Court heard the incident took place on the night of September 12 last year on the outskirts of Gorseinon.
Dean Pulling, prosecuting, said at around 10.30pm motorists in Gorseinon Road encountered a Volkswagen Eos car with the defendant at the wheel which was stationary in the carriageway. As other vehicles manoeuvred around it the VW pulled away and drove into the car park of the nearby Lidl supermarket.
The court heard a passing taxi driver was so concerned about what was going on that he followed Yusuf into the car park to challenge him. Mr Pulling said Yusuf briefly stopped outside the shop then suddenly accelerated away and crashed into the corner of the supermarket building, damaging the wall and puncturing the nearside front tyre of his VW as he did so.
The defendant left the car park and drove away towards Gorseinon town centre with the cabbie following him and also calling the police. As the defendant drove along Gorseinon Road he mounted the pavement before swerving across the carriageway into the opposite lane and then crashing into a concrete traffic island outside the Farm Foods store. The Volkswagen, with oil leaking from its damaged engine, came to rest in the oncoming lane.
The taxi driver and fellow motorists detained the aggressive Yusuf.
Mr Pulling said police arrived shortly afterwards and officers found the defendant’s pupils were dilated, his speech was slurred, he smelled strongly of cannabis, and behaviour was “erratic. Yusuf tested positive for cocaine and cannabis at the roadside.
In his subsequent interview, the 29-year-old said he could remember little of what had happened and he described the incident as being “like a dream”. A blood sample showed the defendant had 800mg of the cocaine metabolite benzoylecogonine per litre of blood – 16 times the legal driving limit of 50mg.
Ahmed Majid Yusuf, of Carlton Terrace, Mount Pleasant, Swansea, admitted dangerous driving. He has four previous convictions for five offences from magistrates’ courts in Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and Swansea for offences including threatening behaviour, criminal damage and handling stolen goods.
He also has police cautions “from various parts of England” for possession of drugs.
The prosecutor said the defendant should have been charged with drugdriving but, despite the toxicology results being known in December, no decision to charge had been made and it was now out of time as charges have to be brought within a six-month time limit.
Tom Scapens, for Yusuf, said the defendant had been sent to the UK by his parents as a 14-year-old from his native Iraq and had settled with a foster family in Leamington Spa before moving to Swansea in 2017.
He said his client had been working as a barber before losing his job due to the Covid outbreak.
The barrister said he had been instructed that the defendant did not
want to return to Iraq out of fear for his safety and had been given leave to stay in the UK until 2023.
Mr Scapens added that in recent years Yusuf’s life had “spiralled” downwards and, despite the defendant’s claims to the contrary, it did appear he had a issue with cocaine. He said his client wished to express his remorse to the court for his behaviour on the night in question.
Judge Huw Rees said Yusuf had clearly been “intoxicated with drugs” when he made the decision to get behind the wheel and said he had driven in an extremely dangerous way on a busy road.
Giving the defendant the required one-third discount for his guilty plea
the judge sentenced him to six months in prison. Yusuf will serve up to half that period in custody before being released on licence.
The defendant was disqualified from driving for two years – with the ban increased by an extra three months to allow for the time he will be in prison – and he must pass an extended test before he can get his licence back.
The judge praised the “highly public-spirited” way the taxi driver and other motorists on the scene had behaved.
The cost of the damage to the wall of Lidl was put at £859 but given the defendant’s means the judge said he would not make any compensation order.