A New Line in Mitigation

Every magistrate has heard the usual string of excuses for driving while disqualified and/or without insurance. Most of them include the claim that the driver was caught on the one and only time that he had driven since his ban, which is a huge tribute to the efficiency of the police, since they seem able to capture offenders as soon as they venture onto the road. Another favourite is the 'my-girlfriend-is-pregnant-and-I-thought-she-was-losing-the-baby' routine. One regular punter has eleven convictions for disqualified driving, and to my knowledge he has used this on at least three of them.
We had a new one last week though. Darren was stopped driving his mate's car, that turned out to be uninsured. Darren's ban had run its course, but since he hadn't yet taken the test ordered by the disqualifying court he remained banned from driving. He hadn't meant to drive, but he had been at the mate's house with a few others when they realised that they had run out of cocaine, so Darren was nominated to go and score a fresh supply. He put this forward in a matter-of-fact manner as if it was the most normal thing in the world. In his world, it probably is.

Here's an interesting piece about drugs from The Observer.