Mascarenas, R. v

Where a driving disqualification is imposed on an offender serving a custodial sentence, Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 section 35B gives the court discretion to adjust the period so that disqualification retains a real punitive effect after release. The court must have regard to the diminished effect of a ban during custody, but need not impose an excessively long ban where that would be anomalous or contrary to rehabilitation.

A disqualification takes effect when imposed. It cannot run consecutively, be postponed or be backdated. An interim disqualification in England and Wales expires after six months unless it ends earlier, and the final disqualification is treated as reduced by the actual interim period.

The appellant pleaded guilty at Snaresbrook Crown Court to dangerous driving after a high-speed police pursuit on country roads while his partner and two young children were passengers. He received eight months’ imprisonment, concurrent with an existing six-and-a-half-year sentence for being concerned in the supply of cocaine.

On 12 December 2017 the sentencing judge imposed a five-year-six-month driving disqualification and an extended re-test requirement. The appellant appealed, with leave, against the length of the disqualification. The central issue was whether the judge’s intended period of disqualification after release had been lawfully and accurately imposed.

1. The appeal against sentence was allowed. The court quashed the five-year-six-month disqualification purportedly imposed under the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 and substituted a four-year-six-month disqualification under section 35B of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.

2. The sentencing judge had cited the wrong statutory provision. Dangerous driving attracted the obligatory minimum disqualification under section 34 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, not the provision he identified. The error did not undermine the intended use of section 35B, whose terms were materially identical. Applying R v Needham & Ors [2016] EWCA Crim 455, section 35B gave the judge discretion to account for the diminished punitive effect of a ban served during custody. It was proper to use that discretion so that a meaningful period of disqualification would remain after release.

3. The order imposed did not achieve that intention. A driving disqualification takes effect on the date of the order and cannot be consecutive, postponed or backdated: R v Meese (1973) 57 Cr.App.R. 568. The interim disqualification had expired after six months. Under section 26(12), the final ban had to be treated as reduced by those six months. The substituted order therefore ran from 12 December 2017, was treated as reduced by six months, and expired on 12 December 2021. The extended re-test requirement remained.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Allowed the sentence appeal and substituted a four-year-six-month disqualification under section 35B of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.

• Crown Court at Snaresbrook: On 12 December 2017 imposed eight months’ imprisonment concurrently with an existing sentence, a five-year-six-month disqualification, and an extended re-test requirement following the guilty plea to dangerous driving.