A dangerous drug driver who had to airlifted to hospital with serious spinal injuries when his car smashed into a tree and lamppost has been jailed for six months and hit with a three-year road ban.
Paul Westoby, 29, of Langley Drive, Norton, Malton, was sentenced at York Crown Court today (Monday 11 April 2022) following guilty pleas to dangerous driving and drug driving.
The single-vehicle collision occurred on Lady Edith’s Drive, near Scalby Road in Scarborough, at around 5.45pm on Thursday 29 April last year.
The 29-year-old’s black Volvo C30 R-Design T5 ended up in a crumpled heap near the old Yorkshire Coast College site.
Firefighters had to cut the roof off the car to free him while paramedics and an air ambulance crew provided emergency treatment.
Traffic Constable Mark Patterson, of North Yorkshire Police’s Roads Policing Group, said Westoby was “lucky to be alive and even luckier that he did not harm anyone else” in the incident.
Witnesses said the defendant had been “driving erratically and overtaking other vehicles at high speed” just before the collision while heading south on the 30mph limit road.
A blood sample taken in hospital found Westoby to have been driving with 3.2 microgrammes of cannabis in a litre of blood in his system - the legal limit is 2 microgrammes.
TC Patterson said:
“Shockingly, Westoby was already under investigation for the same offence at the time of the crash after he was stopped by the police in Norton on 30 December 2020.
“On that occasion, he was double the limit for cannabis. He pleaded guilty and was given a 12-month driving ban when he was eventually sentenced in December last year.”
Westoby’s Volvo was examined following the collision, and it was found to have defective tyres and no MOT.
TC Patterson added:
“It had also been modified, and these modifications had not been declared to his insurer who cancelled his policy.”
“Taking his previous drug driving incident into consideration, Westoby was blatantly in breach of the law on the day of this very serious collision.
“It could so easily have ended his own life or tragically taken the lives of other motorists or pedestrians.
“I welcome the firm stance taken by the court with the custodial sentence, and it is pleasing that Westoby has been disqualified from driving for three years with a three-month extension.
“We simply will not tolerate this type of behaviour on our roads, and we will continue to do everything in our power to bring such offenders to justice and make our roads safer for everyone.”
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