Driving: Disqualification
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of amending legislation so that driving disqualification periods commence at the end of any custodial sentence imposed.
Answered by Sir Nicholas Dakin
Courts can impose a driving disqualification for any offence committed after 01 January 1998.
Driving bans generally start from the day they are imposed at sentencing. This is because, if the offender’s ban was set to commence at the usual point of release, an offender released earlier (on an electronic tag for example) would be able to drive before the ban came into effect. However, Courts have a statutory duty to take into account the impact of a custodial sentence when imposing a driving ban at sentencing. Judges will therefore extend the disqualification period based on the custodial point of release, for all types of sentences including life sentences.
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