Man drove at PC court hears

5:12pm Friday 31st August 2007

A MOTORIST fled from the scene leaving his ex-partner trapped in his van after crashing it following a funeral wake, Newport crown court has heard.

Beverley Price was unconscious and had to be cut out of the vehicle and treated at the Royal Gwent Hospital for cuts and bruises, said prosecutor Robert Ace.

Andrew Thomas, thirty, a panel beater, of Willow Court, Pantside, Newbridge, was jailed for 12 months and banned from driving for four years.

He had pleaded guilty before Caerphilly magistrates to charges of dangerous driving, driving while disqualified, driving without insurance, failing to stop after an accident, and failing to provide a specimen of blood.

He was jailed for a further four months for the breach of a suspended sentence imposed for driving with excess alcohol.

Judge John Curran told him "You are a member of that small, hardcore of idiots who drink and drive.

"Anyone who drives dangerously under the influence of drink is committing a very serious offence."

Mr Ace said that on July 2, Thomas went to a funeral followed by a wake in Crumlin where he met his ex-partner, Miss Price.

The two left in his white transit van and the next thing she remembered was waking up in the Royal Gwent Hospital.

He was spotted by a pedestrian driving at about sixty miles an hour and erratically in the Blackwood area and appeared to be slumped over the steering wheel.

He hit street furniture and stopped and was approached by a woman police officer but he drove towards her missing her by inches.

He then drove down a one way street in Blackwood town centre, crashed into a fence and ran off, leaving Miss Price unconscious and trapped.

He was found hiding in undergrowth.

He refused to give the police a blood sample.

Thomas was said to have three previous convictions for driving with excess alcohol and for driving while disqualified and failing to stop after an accident.

His counsel, Andrew Morse said "His record is unenviable. He had had a relationship with Miss Price for five years but it broke down.

"He has lost everything and now has no relationship and no money."