A DRIVER’S four-year bid to avoid punishment after police clocked him speeding on the A19 near Whitley has ended in an 11-month prison sentence.

Stephen Gareth Blackham, 39, told Judge Simon Hickey at York Crown Court: "I'm a family man. I cannot be sent away."

He was speaking from prison after being arrested on a warrant for failing to attend an earlier hearing.

Judge Simon Hickey said his non-appearance was his latest attempt to evade justice.

Victoria Hajba-Ward, prosecuting, outlined a series of lies by Blackham that had delayed justice for nearly four years.

Blackham was sentenced for breaching the six-month suspended prison sentence Judge Hickey gave him for offences related to the A19 incident, by driving whilst disqualified and without insurance.

At the start of the hearing, Blackham told the judge: “I will be appealing any sentence you give straightaway. I don’t deserve this.”

The judge told him: “You refuse to accept court orders, in particular, you refuse to accept you should not be driving, and you refuse to get insurance, or you lie or deceive in order to get on the road.

“You are a dangerous repeat offender putting the public at risk.

“The public must be protected.”

He ordered Blackham to serve the six months, plus five months for the new offences, banned Blackham from driving for another three years and ordered that when the ban finishes, he cannot drive unsupervised again unless he passes an extended driving test.

Ms Hajba-Ward said Blackham was banned from driving when he was clocked at the wheel in 2017 and sent a formal document ordering him to identify the driver.

He told police his mother was the driver and then, when police wrote back that the driver was male, claimed it was a man he had sold his car to but who couldn’t be traced.

His next excuse was that he had been on an RAF base in Norfolk at the time of the speeding. But the base had no record of him being there, and his mobile phone was at the scene of the speeding at the time it happened.

When police knocked on his door, they found him with the woman who had been sitting next to the speeding driver.

Blackham, of Millcroft Avenue, Stainforth, Doncaster, pleaded guilty to driving whilst disqualified and driving without insurance and breaching the suspended prison sentence.

Representing himself, he claimed he was appealing against the driving ban and disputed most of the prosecution case.