James Adams pleaded guilty to breaking his driving ban at Swansea Crown Court
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A DISQUALIFIED driver who filmed himself breaking the ban was caught when someone showed the footage to police.
James Adams filmed himself at the wheel of a works van then shared the mobile phone video with friends via the instant messaging service Snapchat.
The 24-year-old had been banned since December 2014 after pleading guilty to dangerous driving.
Adams, of Thornton Road, Steynton, Milford Haven, pleaded guilty to driving while disqualified, driving without due care and attention and driving with a licence in September this year when he appeared at Swansea Crown Court. He also pleaded guilty to possessing a small quantity of cannabis, which police had found in his sock.
Georgina Buckley, prosecuting, said the illegal driving came to light "in a rather unusual way".
The barrister said Adams filmed himself driving the van of the gardening contractors he was working for, and then shared it on Snapchat - the video ended up with Dyfed-Powys Police, though "it is not entirely clear how the footage came to be in the possession of the police".
She said the clip – some 11 seconds long – showed the defendant driving along a residential road while he can be heard saying that he didn't care that he still had months left on his ban.
In his subsequent police interview, Adams said he was only moving the van for a short distance at the request of a work colleague.
The court heard Adams had originally been banned for 12 months – and given a suspended jail sentence - in December last year after pleading guilty to dangerous driving for his part in a "car cruise" event which ended in a horror crash on the A40 at Arnold's Hill.
John Tarrant, in mitigation described his client's decision to move the van and film it as a "moment of recklessness" which showed a pattern of "entrenched stupidity rather than entrenched criminality".
The advocate said Adams was scared at the possibility of going to jail, and asked His Honour Judge Huw Davies to step back from activating the previously imposed suspended prison sentence.
The judge told Adams it was the second time he had appeared at the court for motorising matters in the space of just a year, and that at 24-years-of-age he would soon have to stop making excuses for his behaviour.
But His Honour said that he would not be sending the defendant straight to jail – adding that he had avoided custody "by a minimal amount".
For driving while disqualified Adams was sentenced to three months in jail suspended for 12 months, and was disqualified from driving for 12 months. At the end of the ban he will have to take an extended test before he can get his licence back. No separate penalty was imposed for the other matters.
The judge told him: "The next time it comes into your head to do something as foolish as this, spare a thought for your parents who have done everything they can in this context."
Read more: http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/Banned-driver-filmed-wheel-shared-video-friends/story-28085131-detail/story.html#ixzz3qAJuBgAK
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