A STATES police officer who crashed a police van into a taxi – and gave a “bizarre, evasive and unreliable” account of the incident – has been fined £3,000 and banned from driving for three months.
The Magistrate, Bridget Shaw, told Christine Da Silva Gouveia she had displayed a “disregard for the safety of the public”.
Gouveia pleaded guilty to careless driving but denied the more serious charge of dangerous driving and was convicted following a trial in the Magistrate’s Court.
Advocate Jordan Gollop, prosecuting, said Gouveia was driving the van at 24mph along New Street and Union Street when she ran into the back of a taxi at 10.30pm on 14 December 2023.
Both vehicles were damaged but no one was injured, the court heard, and neither driver was found to have been drinking.
However, Advocate Gollop added, Gouveia had not alerted other road users by sounding her siren and did not turn on her blue emergency light until very late, so it had “no practical
effect”.
And he said her account of the incident had been “bizarre, evasive and unreliable”.
Advocate Gollop said Gouveia claimed she had not sounded her siren to avoid disturbing patients at the Hospital, and he added: “She tried to persuade her colleagues that the taxi driver was responsible.”
The taxi driver had not accepted her letter of remorse, the court was told.
Advocate Giles Emmanuel, defending, asked the court not to ban Gouveia from driving. He said there had been no injuries and only minor damage, and her guilty plea to the lesser charge of careless driving had been entered early on.
He added: “She has been a serving police officer for almost five years.”
He suggested that endorsing Gouveia’s licence – so that it bore a record of the offence – could be an alternative to disqualification.
But the Magistrate told Gouveia: “It is inexplicable that there was no use of your siren and no effective use of your blue light. You had disregard for the safety of the public.”
And she questioned whether Gouveia had had to travel at speed that night to what the court heard was a minor incident.
“You over-reacted to what was not a genuine emergency,” she said. “There is no evidence that anyone was in immediate danger.”
Gouveia will have to retake the driving test after the ban has elapsed. In addition to the fine, she was ordered to pay £800 in costs.
