States member banned and fined

Alderney States member Geoffrey Sargent has been banned from driving for a year after pleading guilty to allowing his daughter to drive while uninsured.

Mr Sargent, chairman of the Building and Development Control Committee, was also fined £750 at the Court of Alderney.

His student daughter Elizabeth, 19, avoided a ban but was fined £500. She pleaded guilty to driving while uninsured.

The court heard Elizabeth Sargent was stopped by PC Malcolm Messenger in Route de Crabby while being given a driving lesson by her mother, Pamela Sargent, on 15 April.

The next day both defendants attended the police station, where Elizabeth Sargent produced her driving licence and Geoffrey Sargent, 73, produced an insurance certificate.

However, the only named drivers on the certificate were Geoffrey and Pamela Sargent.

Geoffrey Sargent, of Le Bonheur, Val Reuters, thought his insurers had made a mistake and later contacted them. He subsequently produced a certificate bearing all three names, but it was dated after the offence.

During police interview Elizabeth Sargent said she presumed she was insured and that her mother would not have taken her out had she known that wasn't the case.

Advocate Julia White, mitigating, appealed for special circumstances in Elizabeth Sargent's case, which Jurats accepted.

Advocate White said Elizabeth Sargent had no idea she was uninsured and had trusted her parents. She also said the teenager is due to take a driving test this month and that a ban would prevent her from doing so.

Pamela Sargent was called as a witness and admitted everyone involved had made wrongful assumptions.

Sentencing, Jurat Colin Partridge said the court took a serious view of the matters. He gave both defendants seven days to pay.

5 comments on this article

Create a unique icon for your replies at gravatar.com	Pete | Wed 28th September 2011 Also to add to What Hello has said, if MR Sargents daughter's foot had slipped off the clutch and she hit somebody and badly injured them they would not have been insured so that is why these fines are put in place.

Create a unique icon for your replies at gravatar.com	Hello | Thu 22nd September 2011 @truthseeker - I think you'll find that the last person caught and convicted of taking a vehicle without consent is still imprisoned in Guernsey where he has been for several months. I also believe he has been banned from driving for a few years. Somewhat more of a punishment than the Sargent's me thinks.

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truthseeker | Wed 14th September 2011 This is another case of world gone mad-if this car had been stolen and found abandoned and the culprit subsequently caught the total fines and driving bans would have not equated to what has been handed down here the Sargents made an innocent mistake that has resulted in a driving ban and large fine-yes they broke the law but this was not a premeditated act but a genuine mistake the law is an ass or the courts are.

Create a unique icon for your replies at gravatar.com	Mark | Mon 12th September 2011 That's a bit tough, why not just a warning to the Mother and Daughter when they were stopped, you know "go home and make sure she is insured then you can teach her" £1250 is a lot of money

Create a unique icon for your replies at gravatar.com	pete | Fri 2nd September 2011 You know what they say about assumptions being the mother of all, and I thought our states members were supposed to be intelligent people.

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