A Hove woman has been banned from driving for a second time in less than 18 months.
Melissa Garrett, also known as Melissa Anne Lindsay, 34, of Poynings Drive, Hove, was given her latest ban for driving after taking cocaine.
She appeared before Crawley magistrates on Thursday (20 August) and pleaded guilty to driving along Dyke Road, Brighton, while over the limit on Thursday 17 October last year.
The limit for benzoylecgonine – which found in the blood of people who have had cocaine – is 50 micrograms per litre of blood. It was set to allow for accidental exposure to the drug.
Garrett had the equivalent 518 micrograms per litre of blood in her sample – more than 10 times the legal limit.
She was banned for a year, fined £120 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £85 and a victim surcharge of £32, making £237 in total.
In April last year Brighton magistrates banned Garrett for two months after she admitted driving a silver Jaguar without due care and attention in Portland Road, Hove, the previous September.
On that occasion she was fined £359 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £85 and a victim surcharge of £35, making £479 in total.
And in June 2017 Garret was given three points on her licence and fined £220 for speeding in a Vauxhall on the A23 at Bolney the previous November.
She drove over the 70mph limit and, at Crawley Magistrates’ Court, she was also ordered to pay costs of £85 and a victim surcharge of £30, making £335 in total.
A Brighton man has also been banned and fined for driving after taking cocaine when he appeared at Crawley Magistrates’ Court last Thursday.
Paul Harris-Shaw, also known as Harry Ramstead, 32, of Fletching Close, Whitehawk, had the equivalent of more than 800 micrograms of benzoylecgonine per litre of his blood. The legal limit is just 50 micrograms.
Harris-Shaw pleaded guilty to drug driving in a blue Peugeot 206 on Thursday 2 January in Longridge Avenue, Saltdean, and driving without insurance.
He was banned for a year, fined £120 and ordered to pay £85 in prosecution costs and a £32 victim surcharge, making £237 in total.
I am startled that they are given these meaningless, short-term bans. These socially-inadeqate hands at the wheel should reflect upon the fact that their drugged driving could have led to their own relations becoming squashed flesh upon the tarmac. Dreadful people.