Driver with smashed windscreen on A12 near Ipswich was high on cocaine

A man caught driving a car with a smashed windscreen while high on cocaine has been convicted of a string of motoring offences.

Thomas Crowe, 31, who is from Martlesham in Suffolk, was banned from driving for 18 months and ordered to pay over £300 in fines and costs.

Crowe was arrested after police found an abandoned Ford Fiesta on the A12 near Ipswich in October last year.

Crowe returned to the car with a fuel can and explained to the officers he was the owner of the vehicle and had run out of fuel.

Crowe failed a roadside drug wipe which gave a positive indication for cocaine.

A blood test later found Crowe had Benzoylecgonine (the major metabolite of cocaine) in his system, at a level of 384 microgrammes per litre of blood, more than seven times the legal limit.

Crowe had pleaded guilty to driving with excess drugs, using a motor vehicle in a condition likely to cause danger of injury, and causing an unnecessary obstruction by a motor vehicle.

PC Will Hudson, of the Roads and Armed Policing Team, said: “To drive with that amount of drugs in your system is dangerous enough, but this was then compounded by the fact that the car was not in any state to be driven, with visibility severely impeded by the smashed windscreen.

“Crowe was then also happy to leave his car partially in a live lane of a dual carriageway after he ran out of fuel, which could have also caused a collision.

"Ordinarily when people break down in a dangerous location, they would call the police for help – clearly Crowe was hoping to avoid any attention from us due to the offences he had committed.

“Drug and drink driving is one of the ‘Fatal 4’ main causes of fatal and serious injury collisions and we enforce this 365 days a year. Our message is clear – don’t do it, it is not worth the risk.”

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