11:36am Thursday 23rd August 2007
By Nick Lakeman
A MAN who caused a crash in Winwick in which two people were seriously injured has had an appeal against his sentence quashed.
Simon Calligan, aged 22, from Fleetwood, Lancashire, was convicted of driving without due care and attention, driving without insurance and driving while banned, following the incident, on Watery Lane in February.
Magistrates banned him for a further three years, ordered him to do 200 hours community service and pay £600 compensation and £60 costs.
But at Warrington Crown Court on Friday his lawyer, Kerron Rohrer, appealed against the length of the ban saying that his client had not been properly represented in the lower courts.
"He entered a plea without legal representation," Mr Rohrer said.
"He was only given advice and didn't have the opportunity to present his mitigation."
Claire Jones, prosecuting, said Calligan was turning right into Watery Lane, at the junction with Old Alder Lane when his Citroen van hit a Daewoo van and Toyota car.
The male Daewoo driver had to be cut free from the wreckage and suffered serious neck, head and pelvic injuries, while the driver of the Toyota was also badly hurt.
Calligan escaped uninjured.
Mr Rohrer said his client's previous ban came after he drank two cans of lager at the end of a shift at a restaurant where he worked as a chef and was found to be only one milligram over the legal limit when stopped by police.
Mr Rohrer said that Calligan, who now runs his own mobile fishmongers, was only driving on the day of the crash because a delivery driver had called in sick and he didn't want to let his customers down.
The Recorder of Chester, Elgin Edwards, acknowledged that his livelihood and that of his wife and children depended on him being able to drive.
But he rejected the appeal saying that driving only three months into a year ban was a serious offence and that two people had been seriously injured as a result.
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