Driving Whilst Disqualified

If you drive a motor vehicle on a public road during the period of a driving ban, you will commit the offence of disqualified driving.

The police must prove that you were:

• driving a motor vehicle; and
• were disqualified from driving at the time of the driving.

Penalties range from an unlimited fine, unpaid work in the community or an electronically monitored curfew, right up to 6 months imprisonment. Usually a further period of disqualification of up to 18 months is imposed on conviction but in some cases we are able to persuade a court to impose 6 penalty points instead.

Where you unaware that you had been banned?

In some cases, drivers have been disqualified by a court in their absence, when they were unaware of the proceedings. The first time they become aware, is when they are stopped and arrested for diving while disqualified.

In these kind of situations, the original case can often be reopened and the original disqualification avoided, either by successfully defending the charge or negotiating a plea to a lesser charge that avoids totting up to 12 points or by successfully arguing exceptional hardship.In that event, we would then invite the CPS not to proceed on the disqualified driving charge or in the alternative, persuade the court that that there is a special reason in law why no further points or disqualification should be imposed.