Disqualified Man Pleads Guilty To Drunk Driving
Appearing in Magistrates Court this morning [Dec 4], Jamal Simmons, 35, plead guilty to driving whilst the amount of alcohol in his system exceeded the legal limit and driving whilst disqualified.
Both offences occurred on 15th November 2014 after the car that Mr Simmons had been driving was involved in a single vehicle accident on North Shore Road in Pembroke.
Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo fined Mr Simmons $2,500 for the first offence and disqualified him from driving all vehicles for three years. This because this was Mr Simmons’ second conviction for driving whilst impaired; with a previous conviction for driving whilst impaired in September 2014.
Mr Simmons was then fined $1,000 for driving whilst disqualified, and given a second three year driving disqualification.
The Magistrate ruled that the two new suspensions should run concurrent with each other but consecutive to the September twelve month disqualification. This means that Mr Simmons is now disqualified until September 2018, four years away.
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Lock him up! Clearly he has total disregard for the disqualifications AND he’s always drunk! Next time there may be no next time…sad to say.
Good.
Only in Bermuda…elsewhere he’d be wearing stripes!
I understood that under the law a Magistrate is mandated to sentence anyone convicted of driving while disqualified to an automatic jail sentence unless there are extenuating circumstances. It is also the case that anyone disqualifed from driving does not have a driving licence which means that if he has an accident he will have no insurance because the insurance companies do not accept any responsibility for accidents caused by unlicensed drivers.
So let me get this straight. This man was disqualified after a conviction for driving while impaired, and while disqualified he commits exactly the same crime again and is also involved in an accident for which he has no insurance. Can anyone explain the “exceptional circumstances” in this case, or has the law been changed?
Yea, because disqualifying him from driving sure did the trick.
Why is he NOT in jail for a few weeks – so he gets the “message”!!!
This was a prime case for a local judge to send a message to the individual involved and the public at large about the UNacceptability of drinking and driving on our roads. It appears that this individual could have benefited from a stint up at Casements where he would have got a good ‘drying out’.
Four years is a really long time for any individual to go without driving a vehicle. So I am really curious to see how the courts will Mr. Simmons IF or should I say WHEN, he appears in front of the courts again for either driving while disqualified or driving while impaired. Hmmmmmmmm