A DRIVER who repeatedly evades police attempts to get proof he is drink or drug driving has been jailed.

Melanie Ibbotson, prosecuting, said a roadside test revealed Jason Michael Colman had taken cocaine.

Police had stopped him on January 13 because of his driving.

But when they took him to Fulford Road Police Station, he refused to give the blood sample that would enable them to prosecute him for drug driving. He had a previous conviction for failure to provide a sample and was on a suspended prison sentence for other offences.

Colman, 33, of Westfield Close, Upper Poppleton, pleaded guilty to failure to provide a blood sample and breaching an 18-week suspended prison sentence imposed in April for assault, threats to set fire to a house and failure to attend court.

York magistrates ordered him to serve six weeks of the suspended sentence and banned him from driving for three years and three weeks.

They said they would not make him serve the full 18 weeks because he had fulfilled many of its conditions and that by itself, the failure to provide charge would have merited a community order.

For Colman, Andrew Craven said he hadn’t taken cocaine the day he was arrested.

He had co-operated with the police by the roadside, but when they got to the police station had then decided not to co-operate further.

The 18-week sentence was suspended on condition Colman didn’t commit other offences and complete 24 days’ rehabilitative activities, do 40 hours’ unpaid work, rehabilitation and 15 days’ specified activities.