A motorist followed by an unmarked police car after he made a U-turn on a major road later tested three times over the cocaine driving limit.
But as Lee Stewart vanished after getting out of his Audi it was almost seven hours later that the drug test was taken and a court heard that it could not be proved when he had taken the cocaine.
A video of his driving episode was played at Liverpool Crown Court today (Mon) and 47-year-old Stewart, an Amazon delivery driver, told the judge , “I was quite embarrassed to watch that again.”
Stewart, of Central Way, Bewsey and Whitecross, Warrington, had denied dangerous driving but admitted careless driving which was accepted by the prosecution. He also pleaded guilty to failing to stop when required by the police.
Henry Riding, prosecuting, said that at about 10.20 pm on December 21, 2023 a female police officer in an unmarked police car saw his Audi A4 go through a gap in the central reservation of Winwick Road,
Initially he had been travelling towards the motorway but the U-turn put him heading in the opposite direction. “She illuminated the emergency equipment but he failed to stop and drove off at speed.”
She followed him and he reached 64 mph in a 30 mph area and turned onto residential streets before pulling up outside the first house in Cowdell Street and Stewart, who was wearing shorts, ran inside and shut the door and did not open it to her.
Mr Riding said that at one point in the journey he forced his way through a small gap in the traffic and then turned left. Six minutes after he arrived at the house the officer saw him leave via the back of the property and escape through the rear garden.
“At 1.54 am he rang Cheshire Police to say he was aware they had been looking for him and would wait for them at Cowdell Street. At 5 am the same officer arrived and he provided a positive drugs swipe.”
A subsequent blood test showed he was three times the limit for cocaine, said Mr Riding. The Crown decided to discontinue a prosecution for that offence as it was not possible to do a back calculation so could not prove when he had taken the cocaine.
Sam Eskdale, defending, said that Stewart has no previous convictions. At the time of the offences the dad-of-four was going through “a difficult patch in his mental health” as he and partner had broken up and have since divorced.
He is a driver for Amazon on a self-employed basis but is studying “the knowledge’ to become a taxi driver. He also needs his licence for doing the school run for his children.
The judge, Recorder Peter Cowan, said that the case would be classified as “greater harm” on the sentencing guidelines because of “the high speed and aggressive nature of your driving.”
He said that while the inference was that Stewart had wanted to avoid the police because he knew he had taken cocaine “I put that out of mind.”
Recorder Cowan fined him a total of £975 and ordered him to pay £200 towards the prosecution costs. He also imposed seven penalty points on his driving licence.
