Paul Dillon, from our London-based private client team, was instructed by a client charged with driving with excess alcohol, whereby on the sentencing guidelines, the starting point would have been immediate custody.
The aggravating features were not simply the high reading but also a previous conviction for a very similar matter. The client was in a position as a senior manager for a prestigious car manufacturer based in Hertfordshire.
It was clear that the client was experiencing a number of personal problems which led, in part, to the offending, and it was vital to obtain information about the client’s circumstances to prepare a mitigation package for the court to avoid the distinct possibility of an immediate custodial sentence.
This would, of course, have had massive implications for the client’s career, together with his family and personal life. Paul was able to guide and advise the client in relation to the procedures that would be adopted at court, with the court obtaining a pre-sentence report from the probation service and then eventually presenting the mitigating package to the court.
At the final Magistrates’ court hearing in Cambridge, the court was persuaded that the appropriate course of action would be, in fact, a community order with various conditions to help support and rehabilitate the client and, of course, avoid an immediate custodial sentence.
