Daily Express

My verdict on drink-drive Ant

- By Mr Loophole

LIKE most people following the Ant McPartlin story I couldn’t help but shake my head at the conclusion to the television presenter’s case. For here was a man, a gifted broadcaste­r, earning unimaginab­le wealth, whose life – forgive the pun – had itself tragically become a car crash.

What’s more, it’s unlikely that given those eye-watering pay cheques from ITV, the £86,000 fine will even touch him. To the average working man in Britain it will seem like a fortune but to him it’ll be no more than losing a few coins down the back of the sofa.

But I had another reason for shaking my head. And, if I’m being honest, shouting at the TV screen too.

And that’s because once again – as has happened so many times in my 35-year legal career – the police and Crown Prosecutio­n Service (CPS) got it badly wrong by failing to charge him properly.

In charging Ant McPartlin with the offence of drink driving he was being charged “lite”. In my opinion he should also have been charged with dangerous driving.

For that he would at the very least have received a community order and possibly more.

And that’s quite apart from being ordered to take an extended driving test at the end of his ban. (A longer and more demanding version of the normal learner driving test.)

With this hanging over his head, despite countless chauffeur-driven motors at his disposal, Ant would have lived with the knowledge that regaining his driving licence – for so many people a passport to freedom – was by no means a dead cert.

NOW, before I go on, I have to be clear and say that the punishment he did get is by no means the fault of the District Judge Barbara Barnes. She was clearly following sentencing guidelines.

And after hearing that McPartlin was more than twice the legal limit she calculated his punishment by the book: banning him for 20 months, which is in the middle of the scale for that particular band of the offence (the maximum is 23 months) and fining him two thirds of his weekly income of £130,000 (it would have been 100 per cent had he pleaded not guilty).

The judge was in a straitjack­et. She didn’t have a full charge sheet to accurately reflect the facts of the case. This was paint by numbers justice.

But let’s look at those facts. According to the prosecutio­n, Mr McPartlin was driving around a “sharp bend and lost control” at which point he ended up on the wrong side of the road. He then collided with a car before driving “straight into the front of an oncoming car”, the occupants of which feared for their lives.

He was completely out of control and that’s the disturbing feature of this case. It wasn’t just that he had alcohol in his system but the way that it affected him and his driving.

That’s why he should have been charged with dangerous driving.

I know that many people might think soap-boxing like this may sound a bit rich coming from a so-called celebrity lawyer, who has been nicknamed Mr Loophole after securing acquittals for the likes of Paddy McGuinness, Sir Alex Ferguson and Jimmy Carr on the basis of legal technicali­ties.

But if the crown or the police get it wrong by not applying the law properly then as a lawyer I am duty bound to swoop down on their procedural flaws in order to defend my clients to the best of my abilities.

For example, it’s not for me to say during the breathalys­er procedure, “Er sorry, officer, you forgot to read out the statutory warning”.

There is a presumptio­n of innocence in criminal law. And if the authoritie­s can’t prove their case by virtue of legal (and entirely avoidable) errors I will use those loopholes to defend my clients.

AND I don’t say this glibly. Morally I abhor drink driving, speeding and any manner of dangerous driving. That’s why I want the police and the crown to do their jobs properly – as I do in the case of Ant McPartlin. But once I take instructio­ns as a criminal defence lawyer I have a duty to my client and my profession.

In the case of Ant McPartlin we have a loophole in reverse. Because the charge is lite the punishment doesn’t fit. Indeed McPartlin’s jaw-dropping fine – believed to be the highest imposed by a UK court for drink-driving – also shows what’s wrong with the guidelines themselves.

The fines for most road traffic offences are capped. So if you’re speeding on the motorway the maximum fine is £2,500 regardless of income.

Drink driving fines, however, are uncapped. The guidelines just follow a mathematic­al formula based on weekly salary. So in cases like this we get a grossly disproport­ionate penalty.

But in doing this the courts are trying to equalise the unequal. It won’t inflict pain on Ant McPartlin to lose two thirds of his weekly salary. It will if you earn £150 a week.

The law as it stands is groping to find parity between those who are wealthy and those who are not. It has to be changed. The problem in this case was compounded because he wasn’t charged correctly.

Meanwhile, as Ant McPartlin’s life plays out like a Greek tragedy, I desperatel­y hope he learns from his mistake.

More significan­tly I hope – yet again – that the police and CPS do too. Though sadly experience has taught me not to hold my breath.

‘Not charged with the appropriat­e offence’

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 ?? Picture: EPA ?? GUILT: Ant should have faced dangerous driving charge
Picture: EPA GUILT: Ant should have faced dangerous driving charge
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