Drunk taxi driver drove wrong way down A12 and narrowly avoided crash with police car
https://www.essexlive.news/news/essex-n ... g-10793078
A taxi driver drove the wrong way down the A12 and narrowly avoided a head-on collision with two vehicles, including a police car. Khurram Bashir was more than two-and-a-half times over the drink drive limit when he almost struck the vehicles on the A12 on December 23 last year.
A member of the public was “confronted by a sight of headlights driving at speed towards her”, forcing her to swerve into another lane to avoid the vehicle. Bashir also came within metres of crashing into a police car in a collision that “would have been devastating and no doubt fatal”.
Mr Bashir’s vehicle was driving at between 50 to 60mph on the wrong side of the A12, the court heard. A police car he almost collided with was travelling at 70mph, leaving one of the officers “shaken” by the near-miss.
The driver was eventually stopped by a police officer who had blocked two lanes of the carriageway with his vehicle. Recorder Paul Sharkey described the actions as “foolish and stupid”.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard that Bashir, of Springfield Park Lane in Chelmsford, was suffering from anxiety, depression and panic because of a previously diagnosed condition that the driver feared “might have returned or might be life-threatening”.
“It was your choice to drink a considerable amount of alcohol and put yourself in that position,” Mr Sharkey said. Bashir, a taxi driver of 20 years experience, was previously of good character with no previous convictions and just three points on his licence.
Huda Mousa, defence, mitigating for Mr Bashir said: “Not only did he accept responsibility for what he’s done by his guilty plea, more importantly he made admissions in interview where he actually wanted to thank police officers for stopping him and the fact that mercifully there was no collision where there could have been.”
They added: “This was a one-off. Up until that moment and that day he had been a law abiding citizen, a family man always in employment.”
Mr Sharkey said: “This was a very bad case of dangerous driving where you could have collided head-on with a number of vehicles.”
Bashir was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, banned from driving for two years, and ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work.