Lord Ahmed jailed for dangerous driving

Labour peer Lord Ahmed was today jailed for 12 weeks for dangerous driving after admitting he was texting while driving on a motorway just before being involved in a fatal crash.

Sheffield crown court had previously heard how Ahmed sent and received five text messages while driving in the dark at speeds of 60mph and higher along a 17-mile stretch of the M1 on Christmas Day 2007.

Martyn Gombar, 28, a Slovakian man living in Leigh, Lancashire, died when the peer's Jaguar hit an Audi car that had crashed into the central reservation and was stationary in the fast lane of the motorway near Rotherham, South Yorkshire.
Ahmed, 51, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving when he appeared at Sheffield magistrates court last year.

He had been due to be sentenced by magistrates in December but a district judge decided a crown court judge needed to deal with the case and gave the peer an interim driving ban.
Sentencing him today, Mr Justice Wilkie made clear the texting incident had no bearing on the fatal collision.

"After a full and thorough police investigation it's clear the dangerous driving had no causal link to the accident."
But the judge went on: "It is of the greatest importance that people realise what a serious offence dangerous driving of this type is.
"I have come to the conclusion that by reason of the prolonged, deliberate, repeated and highly dangerous driving for which you have pleaded guilty, only an immediate custodial sentence can be justified."

As well as jailing him for 12 weeks, the judge imposed a one-year driving ban and ordered the peer to pay £500 prosecution costs.
Earlier, Jeremy Baker QC, defending, put a series of points of mitigation to the judge, including Lord Ahmed's years of service to the community and the country.
The barrister also pointed to the peer's attempts to help Mr Gombar and how he took it upon himself to warn other motorists about the incident at some personal risk to himself.

Baker described how the defendant had come to Britain as a child speaking no English but had built up a successful business and political career before being made a life peer. His client provided an important function for the country both nationally and internationally, particularly in the field of inter-faith relations, he said.