A banned driver got behind the wheel of his 67-plate Mercedes because he didn’t like where his brother-in-law had left it.
Nivaldo Vaz-Rodrigues, 33, was disqualified from the roads for 19 months in June after he admitted drink driving.
Oxford Magistrates’ Court heard that police officers spotted him driving the E-class Mercedes at Junction 5 of the M40 on September 3 then followed him for 25 miles back to his home in Bicester.
Appearing before the magistrates on Saturday morning, Vaz-Rodrigues, of Grebe Road, Bicester, pleaded guilty to driving whilst disqualified and failing to surrender to the court in August. An earlier allegation of driving whilst disqualified was withdrawn.
Jayne Wilkinson, mitigating, told the court that her client’s brother-in-law had been using the car while Vaz-Rodrigues was seeing family in Portugal.
She said: “He arrives back from Portugal, his brother-in-law had left it somewhere he doesn’t consider to be particularly safe so on September 3 he went to collect the car.
“The police followed him to his home address and he’s arrested on the warrant issued by this court on August 3 as well as the two matters of driving whilst disqualified.”
He would ‘not be doing that anymore’, she added, as his business studies course resumed at the end of September and he would be kept busy with lectures.
The magistrates ordered a pre-sentence report and bailed him to return to the magistrates’ court for sentence on October 5. Chairman of the bench Helen Lloyd said: “We’re not ruling out a custodial sentence at the moment so it is in your interest to cooperate as fully as you can with probation.”
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