Hartlepool man banned from driving after being stopped by police taking pregnant girlfriend to hospital

Spraypainter Daniel Burnside, 29, had no insurance for the Skoda Octavia car when the police interrupted his mercy dash.

His barrister Stephen Constantine said that Burnside had been working on the car so that he could sell it but then his girlfriend went into labour on August 13 last year.

The court heard he phoned for an ambulance to get her to hospital but after an hour’s delay she told him: ”I can’t wait, I can’t wait."

He put her into the car, but a short distance from her home a police patrol stopped him in Sunnybrow, Crook.

Mr Constantine told Teesside Crown Court: “The police helped him to get her to hospital where she gave birth within the week.”

Burnside, of Pine Grove, Hartlepool, pleaded guilty to driving without insurance, no licence and under the influence of cannabis.

He risked going to prison because prosecutor Harry Hadcfield said he was in breach of a 12 months jail sentence suspended for two years in September 2017 for handling stolen goods.

The judge told him that he would not activate the sentence because of the difference in offending and the good progress he had made while living with his mother in Hartlepool.

Burnside was given an eight week night time curfew electronically tagged, disqualified for 12 months and he was ordered to pay £85 surcharge.

Judge Howard Crowson told him: "I must warn you that although I have taken no action on the breach of the suspended sentence you are still subject to the suspended sentence.”