No jail for 5th disqualified

A 23-YEAR-OLD father of two has narrowly avoided actual jail time after pleading guilty to his fifth disqualified driving offence in five years.

Brighton Daniel Becker was already on a suspended fourmonth jail term and just 20 months into a three-year driving disqualification period imposed by Toowoomba Magistrates Court in January last year for a previous disqualified driving offence when he was caught driving in September last year.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Natalie Bugden told the same court a witness contacted police after spotting a group of people entering a vacant house at Postmans Ridge about 3.20pm, September 17, last year.

The witness took down the registration number of a 4WD vehicle parked outside that house and police spotted the vehicle on the Toowoomba Bypass later that afternoon, she said.

While he wasn’t pulled over on Mort St, police took a photograph of the driver in the vehicle and later spoke to Becker at his Drayton home.

Initially denying he had been driving, the 23-year-old fessed up when he was shown the photograph of him driving, Sgt Bugden said.

Ironically, Becker had licensed drivers in the 4WD with him at the time who could have driven, the court heard.

He pleaded guilty to trespassing at the Postmans Ridge property and driving while disqualified by a court.

His solicitor John Davis, of Kennedy Spanner Lawyers, told the court his client was “very fearful” of going to jail but realised the situation in which he had put himself.

Mr Davis said he conceded that his client’s traffic history was “abysmal”.

Magistrate Graham Lee activated the four-month suspended term in full and sentenced Becker to a total eight months in jail but ordered he be released on parole immediately and disqualified him from driving for four years.

Becker was fined $400 on the trespassing charge.