A CARDIFF man who crashed his car into a petrol pump on a garage forecourt was disqualified from driving and over the drink-drive limit at the time.
Appearing in Llanelli Magistrates’ Court via videolink on Thursday (Jan 4) Thomas Morgan, 28, pleaded guilty to charges of driving while over the specified alcohol limit, driving without due care and attention, driving while disqualified, and driving without insurance.
The court heard that Morgan, of Longspears Avenue, was currently in prison for leading police on a high-speed chase in Cardiff while twice the legal alcohol limit in July.
Prosecuting, Abul Hussein said that a Vauxhall Astra driven by Morgan had collided with a pump at a fuel station near St Clears as well as striking a member of the public on June 10.
“As a result of the collision, substantial damage was caused to the fuel pump. A number of persons got out of the Vauxhall Astra and stayed at the scene for a few minutes before running off to an unclassified road,” he added, explaining that CCTV footage showed Morgan exiting the drivers’ door of the car.
A police officer located the defendant half a mile away on the unclassified road. He was subsequently arrested but had sustained injuries to his leg and needed medical attention.
At West Wales General Hospital, a blood sample showed 165mcg within 100 ml of blood, over twice the legal limit. “At the time of the offence Mr Morgan was actually disqualified from driving. There are lots of similar convictions recorded and in August of last year, the defendant was disqualified from driving for a total of 24 months with a four month extension,” Mr Hussein added.
The court heard that a compensation claim for £14,883.80 had been made by the garage to cover the ‘substantial damage’ done to the pump.
Representing Morgan, John Wilkins in mitigation said that the defendant had ‘no recollection’ of the events.
He added that Morgan had been in custody since August for offences which post-dated this incident.
“As a result of the accident, my client was hospitalised. It’s more luck than judgement that he wasn’t more seriously injured and there wasn’t more serious damage. Some credit should be awarded for an early guilty plea,” he added.
“I’m glad that you actually realise how foolish you are,” Chair of the Bench, Lynne Davies told Morgan. “You’ve done this once, then again and again. There are a substantial number of previous and similar offences prior to the last custody sentence.”
Morgan was jailed for 16 weeks, to run concurrently with his existing sentence. In addition, he was banned from driving for 36 months and ordered to pay a total of £200 in costs and victim surcharge on release.
However, magistrates decided that there was ‘insufficient evidence’ for compensation to be awarded.
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