A young man caught driving while disqualified twice in less than six weeks has been spared prison but warned by a judge that any further offending will see him spending more time behind bars.
Tyler Alan Lockhart, now 21, was locked up for 10 months in March last year. Van driver Lockhart had rammed a police patrol vehicle during a high speed pursuit and then crashed head-on into a pregnant woman’s car which was written off.
Earlier in the incident he had mounted a pavement close to a Carlisle primary school and driven through a play park causing another motorist to take evasive action.
In addition to immediate imprisonment, Lockhart was ordered to serve a three-year driving ban when released from custody.
But on 19 March this year, Lockhart was caught behind the wheel of a Land Rover Freelander, at Pasture Walk in Carlisle, despite being disqualified and uninsured.
He was punished for that offence at the city’s magistrates court, and made subject to a community order comprising unpaid work.
On April 28 Lockhart was caught out again for copycat offending. “A member of the public has reported Mr Lockhart was driving a Renault Laguna in a cul-de-sac on (Carlisle’s) Pennine Way,” prosecutor George Shelley told the city’s magistrates’ court this morning.
CCTV was checked and showed him committing the offence before walking away.
Jeff Smith, defending, said Lockhart had been trying to generate income by valeting vehicles with police having “kept a close eye on him”.
Lockhart had latterly been complying in an exemplary fashion with work aimed at helping him to rehabilitate.
The valeting work had since stopped and Lockhart, of Beverley Rise, Carlisle, was back to square one. However, Mr Smith insisted: “That is not offending. It is doing what was required of him by the probation service.”
District judge John Temperley said he was just about persuaded to give Lockhart another chance, but warned that any reoffending or failure to comply with the probation service would see him sent to prison.
Lockhart was given a new 18-month community order after he admitted driving while disqualified and again having no insurance. He must complete a thinking skills course, a rehabilitation requirement and 180 hours’ unpaid work, along with a 31-month driving ban.
