A man who was caught by police for two separate motoring offences in Portadown has been banned from the road for six months.
Sean Metcalfe, of Mullanary Road, Dungannon pleaded guilty to using a car without insurance, failing to produce insurance, driving a vehicle with no MOT and driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition.
The thirty-five-year-old appeared before Craigavon Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday to face the charges which were amassed on two separate occasions.
Court heard the first incident dated back to September 28 of 2015, when police stopped the defendant on Bridge Street, Portadown, driving a blue Audi A4, after it was flagged as being uninsured.
They spoke to Metcalfe who elected to produce an insurance document, but he never did so.
The second offences occurred on April 30 of this year, when police stopped the defendant driving an Audi A4 on the Moy Road, Portadown.
Officers found that the vehicle was in a dangerous condition and checks showed the car’s last valid MOT certificate was from 2015.
Court heard Metcalfe, originally from Derry/Londonderry, worked in customer services having to regularly drive to Cavan and estimated his average mileage per year at around 30,000 miles.
Defence solicitor Oisin Toner commented that “the loss of Mr Metcalfe’s licence would weigh heavy on his continued employment”.
He explained that on the first offences the defendant “had insurance on his own vehicle and believed he had taken all the steps to transfer that but hadn’t”.
On the second offences, Mr Toner stated the vehicle had been for the Metcalfe’s partner and the defendant had left the vehicle with a mechanic “who he knew well” to fix up.
The solicitor pointed to the report stating a constable commented “that the brake pads looked fairly new”.
Mr Toner explained that the defendant normally got a lift into work from a friend but on this day, she could not pick him up.
This led Metcalfe to take the decision to drive the other into work.
Court heard the defendant currently had eight points on his licence and risked losing it through a totting up process.
Metcalfe was handed six penalty points which meant he immediately got a six-month driving ban.
The defendant was also ordered to pay a fine of £375, along with the offender’s levy of £15, within 12 weeks.
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