A BANNED driver who has been disqualified 16 times has been caught behind the wheel yet again after repeatedly defying court orders.

The judge said he had been left with no choice but to jail Naheed Plumridge who had already been convicted of driving while disqualified when he appeared at Worcester Crown Court on Friday to be sentenced.

The 42-year-old of Firs Lane, Bromyard, was convicted at Hereford Magistrates Court of driving while disqualified and driving without insurance at a hearing on May 18.

This placed him in breach of a suspended prison sentence imposed by Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court on March 22 last year for a drugs offence.

The prison sentence was one of eight months suspended for 18 months with a concurrent sentence of one month for failing to surrender to custody.

Michael Conry, prosecuting, said police had spotted Plumridge parked in ‘an unusual place’ on August 14, 2014. Officers investigated and found him in possession of two carrier bags of cannabis weighing just under half a kilogramme. They also found £640 in cash. He was convicted of possession of cannabis with intent to supply.

Officers on mobile patrol spotted Plumridge in a Citroen Picasso in Leominster on May 4 this year.

Plumridge had 30 convictions for 140 offences, including 16 previous convictions for driving while disqualified.

Lee Egan, defending, said Plumridge said: “There is no suggestion this is a one-off. This is a man who has been driving when he shouldn’t.”

He urged the judge not to activate the prison sentence because driving while disqualified was a dissimilar matter to the drugs offence for which the suspended sentence was originally imposed.

Mr Egan said his failure to surrender to custody arose out of his failure to provide medical evidence of the separated shoulder he had suffered playing rugby.

He said: “The injury has also prevented him working as a roofer.”

He said Plumridge had completed 66 hours of an unpaid work requirement, around a third of the total, but could not finish it because of the injury.

Judge Nicholas Cole said of the original offence: “It was a fairly significant quantity of cannabis.”However, he gave him credit for pleading guilty at the earliest available opportunity to driving while disqualified.“You were driving a time when you knew you should not. You were, in your own words, stupid to do so.“You had only a few weeks left before you could apply for your licence” said Judge Cole. He added: “I take the view there is no realistic prospect of rehabilitation.”He said in the event of an accident other motorists would not be able to claim from Plumbridge’s insurance and said he had already been banned from driving 16 times. The judge also said Plumbridge had driven a significant distance.

The judge sentenced him to six months immediate custody.