A careless driver who crashed into a telephone exchange, causing £80,000 damage and a two-week town broadband blackout while also falsely reported his car as stolen, has been spared immediate prison.
In the face of overwhelming evidence, 40-year-old Mark D’Vaz accepted he was driving a BMW when it crashed on the A5086 at Cockermouth early on April 2 last year.
Carlisle Crown Court heard today the BMW driver had failed to negotiate a sharp bend before crashing into a wall and telephone exchange. The latter was destroyed, £80,000 damage was caused and there was an internet blackout for around a fortnight in the Cockermouth area.
There was no sign of the driver at the scene with D’Vaz, of Cockermouth, falsely reporting his vehicle stolen at 9-27am that morning.
D’Vaz made a statement in which he assumed the “thief” must have used a spare key for his car. But police who were very quickly suspicious of his claim analysed an ignition key which D’Vaz later took to a vehicle recovery compound. “Modern keys have a ‘memory’ and police established that key had been used in that car at 2-42am on the morning of the crash,” said prosecutor Brendan Burke. “In interview he said that he had been drinking prosecco with his partner, that he had been taking a form of medication and that he thought the blend sent him into hallucinations.”
D’Vaz had no recollection of the incident but later admitted charges of perverting the course of justice, careless driving and failing to stop after a collision, and had expressed remorse. A breath test six hours after the collision showed he was below the legal limit.
The court heard D’Vaz was a technical author for a branch of the Sellafield complex with his job involving specialist tasks. He was also a volunteer community first responder, a guitar technician who taught Carlisle Youth Zone attendees and had no previous convictions.
Defence barrister Peter Wilson called the offending “a moment of madness and panic,” and said immediate custody would bring hardship in the face of major difficulties already experienced by D’Vaz, his partner and two young dependant children.
Concluding there was a realistic prospect of rehabilitation, Judge Richard Archer suspended a three-month jail term for 18 months, imposing 180 hours’ unpaid work and a six-month driving ban. It had been, the judge told D’Vaz, a “brazen attempt to avoid detection for your bad driving”.
