Leeds banned driver drove after being given suspended sentence

Mohammed Khalil was arrested soon after being spared an immediate prison sentence for handling stolen goods when he sold a car which had been stolen in a burglary.

Leeds Crown Court heard Khalil advertised an Audi for sale on the Gumtree website two days after it had been stolen during a burglary at a house in West Yorkshire on August 19 last year.

Khalil sold the vehicle, estimated to be worth £20,000, for £3,000. The Audi was stopped days later by officials at the port of Dover as it was about to be taken to Romania by two men.

Khalil was arrested over the sale of the Audi and found guilty of handling stolen goods after a trial.

He was given a ten month suspended sentence on May 9 this year.

Mehran Nassiri, prosecuting, said Khalil was stopped by police driving a Vauxhall Corsa on Torre Road, Leeds, on July 1 this year.

He admitted to officers that he was disqualified from driving. The court heard he had been made the subject of a the ban in 2014 after being caught using his mobile phone while driving.

Khalil, 24, of Woodsley Road, Hyde Park, Leeds, pleaded guilty to driving while disqualified, having no insurance and breach of a suspended sentence order.

Mark McKone, mitigating, said Khalil and his brother had been doing building work at a house and he had driven the car after being asked to go buy some tiles.

Mr McKone said: “He appreciates that he has no excuse for driving at all but this was not pre-planned and he was only going a short distance.”

Khalil was jailed for jailed for nine months.

Judge Geoffrey Marson, QC, said: “This was quite a deliberate breach and you knew it.

“People have to understand that if the courts give people suspended sentences and they commit another offence they will have to serve it.”