A 39-YEAR-OLD man who drove without insurance, refused to give the police a blood sample and was found with up to £150-worth of cannabis has been sentenced to 140 hours of community service and fined £300.
Vincenzo De Tommaso was also banned from driving for 30 months.
Crown Advocate Lauren Hallam, prosecuting, told the Magistrate’s Court that police officers stopped De Tommaso’s silver Honda in Union Street on 28 March after they spotted him driving without wearing a seatbelt. They also discovered he had no insurance for the vehicle.
Just after midnight on 15 April he was seen driving the same car suspiciously slowly along Springfield Road, at an estimated speed of between 15 and 20mph.
He was stopped by police, with Advocate Hallam saying: “His speech was slurred, his eyes were wide and he was unsteady on his feet.”
He also dropped a bag containing cannabis with a street value of between £100 and £150. De Tommaso was arrested on suspicion of driving while under the influence of drink or drugs but would not provide a blood sample at the police station.
De Tommaso has lived in Jersey for seven years, and Advocate Stephen Wauchope, defending, said: “In all that time he has never had so much as a parking ticket.”
However, he said that last year he suffered “a nasty assault” that had “emotional consequences”.
The advocate said: “He lost his confidence and his employment overnight.”
But Assistant Magistrate Adam Clarke told De Tommaso: “You made the decision to drive the vehicle while in possession of drugs and to refuse to provide a blood sample, and the court must recognise those decisions.”
As well as the community service order and the fine, he ordered that De Tommaso must retake his driving test after the ban had elapsed.
