A DANGEROUS drug driver is “lucky to be alive” and has been jailed after a shocking crash that saw him airlifted to hospital with serious spinal injuries when his car smashed into a tree and lamppost.
Paul Westoby, 29, of Langley Drive, Norton, Malton, was sentenced at York Crown Court today (Monday April 11) following guilty pleas of dangerous driving and drug driving.
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The single-vehicle crash happened on Lady Edith’s Drive, near Scalby Road in Scarborough at around 5.45pm on Thursday April 29 last year.
A black Volvo C30 R-Design T5 ended up in a crumpled heap near the Old Yorkshire Coast college site following the crash.
Firefighters had to cut the roof odd the car to free him while paramedics and air ambulance crew provided emergency treatment.
He was airlifted to hospital following the crash, with serious spinal injuries.
Traffic Constable Mark Patterson of North Yorkshire Police’s Roads Policing Group, said Westoby was “lucky to be alive” and even “luckier he did not harm anyone else.”
Witnesses of the incident said the defendant had been “driving erratically and overtaking other vehicles at high speed” before the crash on a 30mph limit road.
After taking a blood sample at the hospital, Westoby was found to be driving with 3.2 microgrammes of cannabis in a litre of blood in his system – the legal limit is 2 microgrammes.
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Traffic Constable Patterson added that “shockingly” Westoby was already under investigation for the same offence at the time of the crash after he was stopped by police in Norton on December 30 2020.
He added: “On that occasion, he was double the limit for cannabis. He pleaded guilty and was given a 12-month driving ban when he was eventually sentenced in December last year.”
Westoby’s Volvo was examined following the collision and it was found to have defective tyres and no MOT according to police.
Mr Patterson added: “and these modifications had not been declared to his insurer who cancelled his policy.
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“It could so easily have ended his own life or tragically taken the lives of other motorists or pedestrians."
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