A dangerous driver caught growing cannabis three months after he was spared jail has been given ‘one final chance’.
Marvin Barker, 31, of Evenlode, Banbury, was handed a lifeline last August when a judge dealing with him for a car chase imposed a suspended sentence of 12 months rather than send him to prison for a year.
The dad-of-two repaid the kindness by breaching the order. He failed to attend community service appointments and committed further offences. Police caught him growing two cannabis plants at a house in Brackley last November, when he was also caught with a knuckleduster.
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On Monday, defence barrister Dana Bilan asked the judge to stop short of activating the 12 month suspended sentence.
Since the case was adjourned last month, Barker had proved his commitment to doing unpaid work by turning up to the probation-run sessions. He had still done less than half of the 80 hours ordered in August.
She described the probation service’s decision to launch breach proceedings as a ‘massive wake up call’ for her client.
“This is a man who can work. He’s keen to address his addiction. He cannot do it on his own. He’s very keen to take the input from probation,” Ms Bilan said.
Marking the breach of the suspended sentence by adding another 20 unpaid work hours and imposing a 12 month drug rehabilitation order, Judge Ian Pringle QC said: “You have got to understand that unless you comply with court orders you are likely to be breached and if you’ve got a suspended sentence it is likely to be implemented.
"I have, through the submissions of your learned counsel, just been persuaded to give you one final chance.”
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Last year, the crown court heard that Barker was driving his partner’s Ford Focus to a job interview on June 10, 2019, when a patrolling police officer tried to pull him over for having purple headlights.
Despite saying he would stop and talk to the officers, Barker made off at speed. He weaved in and out of traffic, went straight across a roundabout and nearly crashed into another vehicle.
He tried hiding in his Ford behind the Jewsons warehouse before emerging onto Beaumont Road, where he drove at speed and on the wrong side of the road in order to overtake a line of parked cars.
Barker crashed head-on into a police car coming in the opposite direction and in which BBC reporter Claire Barker was a passenger. The journalist described his driving as ‘very dangerous’.
The Ford driver fled and was found hiding in a bush.
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