A drug driver blew £6,000 of inheritance money on specialist motoring solicitors chasing what was described as a "meritless" defence case.
Matthew Thomas Collett, 29, represented himself at a sentencing hearing at Flintshire Magistrates' Court in Mold, after Cheshire-based M. A. J. Law told him he'd need to pay another £1,500 for them to attend, despite it being only a 25 mile journey from their offices in Widnes.
Following legal arguments by the firm at an earlier hearing, Collett of Lyme Grove in Buckley, admitted driving a vehicle when the amount of benzoylecgonine in his blood, namely 244 mcg per 100 ml, exceeded the prescribed limit (50 mcg per 100 ml) contrary to section 5A of the Road Traffic Act 1988. Benzoylecgonine is produced by the metabolic breakdown of cocaine in the body.
The offence took place on 31st December 2017 at Pinford Lane in Buckley. Police observed Collett's Ford Transit van crossing the solid white line, so decided to pull it over. Suspecting Collett was under the influence of either alcohol or drugs, the police carried out a roadside breath test and drugs swipe. The breath test was negative for alcohol, but the drug swipe was positive for cocaine. Collett was duly arrested on suspicion of driving whilst over the prescribed limit for drugs. A child passenger was present in the vehicle at the time.
Collett subsequently admitted to police that he had taken a line of cocaine around 14 hours earlier. Analysis of blood confirmed he was well over the limit.
On Monday he was banned from driving for 18 months, ordered to carry out 80 hours unpaid work, and ordered to pay a £950 contribution towards prosecution costs.
Magistrates told Collett that he had been "conned" by the legal advice he had received and he should complain to the Solicitor's Regulatory Authority.
Collett had initially entered a not guilty plea in the hope that M. A. J. Law, which he said had offered reassuring words of advice, would be able to come up with a technical defence to the charge.
On the day of trial legal arguments took place and it was ruled the case should proceed on the information already before the court. The court would rely on simply a summary of the forensic findings and there would be no further information.
Justin Elspie, prosecuting, said Collett had admitted ingesting cocaine before driving and the difficulty for him was that no expert would be able to accurately assess the metabolism of any illegal drug unless its purity was known.
Defence solicitors had a duty to advise clients of the strength of the evidence against them and advise them of the additional costs involved in taking cases to trial, said Mr Espie. If technical defences were run, then prosecution costs spiralled.
Collett said he found the law firm online and was told that he had a good chance of winning the case. "I believed what I was told", he said.
"I should just have pleaded guilty in the first place", he said.
"They made me feel I was going to win this case."
Collett said he was advised that the law firm had a 90 per cent success rate and that his defence was strong. Mr Espie said he did not know how the company measures its success rate, but a significant number of the M. A. J. Law cases dealt with by the CPS locally resulted in guilty pleas.
We'd recommend extreme caution to anyone thinking of using such a firm.
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