Five complaints were made to police by people who saw the van being driven on the wrong side of road and speeding. Two reported the vehicle colliding with their cars and failing to stop. In Les Rohais de Haut, Castel, it struck a granite mushroom and a road sign on the corner near Nineteen restaurant.
‘That you didn’t kill anyone that morning, including yourself, is astonishing,’ Judge Marc Davies told John Paul Dodd, 42, who admitted a total of six offences when he appeared in the Magistrate’s Court from custody.
Crown Advocate Chris Dunford told the court how the defendant’s journey had begun from a property in St Peter’s at about 5.25am and ended at his home at Mon Plaisir in the Green Lanes, St Peter Port.
Dodd said later that he had gone to the property at St Peter’s to buy gabapentin, a class C drug. He took some while there but said he had also been ‘spiked’ with others. This was not disputed, said Advocate Dunford, as a blood test had revealed three different types of drugs in the defendant’s system, though by his own admission, he had also taken drugs voluntarily.
When police went to Dodd’s home they saw damage to his van. CCTV showed sparks coming from the exhaust as it scraped along the road. Dodd was unsteady on his feet and was frothing at the mouth.
Twenty tablets of the class C drug clonazepam were found in his sock when being booked into custody, and during a search of his home later that day, dihydrocodeine and cannabis resin, both class B substances, were recovered.
In interview later he said he knew had been unfit to drive and said he could barely stand.
On a separate occasion 30 gabapentin tablets had been found in his van after he was spoken to by police in connection to a road traffic collision.
In 2015 Dodd had been jailed for 14 years by the Royal Court for his part in a drug importation.
Defending, Advocate Samuel Steel said his client wished to offer a full and frank apology for what he had done and accepted that it was more by luck than judgement that no injuries had been caused to anyone. The drugs had been for his own use at a time when he had relapsed in to drug use and his choices had been reckless and dangerous.
Judge Marc Davies said the offences he was dealing with all resulted from the defendant’s drug habit.
Dodd was jailed for six months for dangerous driving and had his licence suspended for three years. A probation order of three years was also imposed. There was no separate penalty for failing to stop after an accident though a three-month driving ban, concurrent, was attached.
The four drug possession offences attracted various penalties and took his total prison sentence to one of nine months. Forfeiture and destruction of the drug was ordered.