A DRIVER with 18 penalty points tried to convince two benches of York magistrates he should keep his licence.

When the second bench handed Ali Akar, 28, a six-month driving ban, he challenged their decision.

Immediately after leaving court, he spoke to his lawyer, Shazad Dad.

Earlier this year he had appealed against a different ban imposed by Northallerton magistrates.

Mr Dad told the bench Akar had been unaware of that ban when police stopped him for breaking it in March.

Akar, of Gowthorpe, Selby, who owns two fast food outlets, pleaded guilty to driving whilst disqualified on March 24 and March 28, both on Gowthorpe, driving without insurance on both occasions and driving without insurance on May 10, 2018 on Union Lane, Selby.

Akar claimed to the first York bench there were special reasons why he should not get penalty points for three offences of driving without insurance.

After they rejected that argument, he claimed a week later to the second York bench that he would suffer exceptional hardship if he was banned.

Mr Dad said: “If he is disqualified, it will have a disastrous effect upon him.”

Akar claimed that three employees for his Selby fast food business would be unable to get to work if he couldn’t drive them there.

He also claimed that he had to drive to London up to three times a week to attend his fast food business there, and to visit his ex-wife, whom he alleged was in a “vegetative state” in a care home.

But after hearing him give evidence and reading documents he handed in, the second bench decided neither he nor others would not suffer exceptional hardship.

They banned him for six months under the totting-up procedure for having 18 penalty points.

They also ordered him to pay a £500 fine, plus a £50 statutory surcharge and £85 prosecution costs.

After March, Akar appealed against the Northallerton magistrates' ban to Teesside Crown Court and won on a technicality.