Hundreds of drivers are arrested every year by Leicestershire Police for offences such as drink-driving, driving while disqualified or driving under the influence of drugs. Meanwhile, thousands more find themselves being sent fines or court summons in the post for more minor offences such as speeding and jumping red lights.
But on rare occasions offences committed behind the wheel lead to jail sentences when people are repeat offenders or their actions lead to tragic consequences. Three of the drivers below ended up killing people – one victim was a cyclist, two an elderly couple in a car and one the man’s own girlfriend in the passenger seat.
These are among the worst drivers of 2024. Read more about their shocking crimes below.
READ MORE: Drink-driving carer twice the limit crashed on her way to work
Patricia Pringle
Patricia Pringle admitted to killing the couple earlier this year
(Image: Leicestershire Police)
A driver killed an elderly couple in a head-on crash while using her phone at the wheel. Patricia Pringle, who had drugs in her car, showed “very little remorse” for her actions after the collision, police said.
Pringle, of Park Vale Road, Spinney Hills, Leicester, was driving her blue Volkswagen Golf on the A47 at Barrowden, in Rutland, in May 2022 when the car went onto the opposite side of the road and crashed into a silver Fiat Qubo. The impact killed the Fiat’s occupants, 89-year-old Clive Jones and his wife, Elaine, 82. Pringle, then 54, was hospitalised with a broken arm.
Investigations by Leicestershire Police’s Serious Collision Investigation Unit (SCIU) soon uncovered problems with Pringle’s driving. Eyewitnesses claimed Pringle had implied she had been on her phone at the time of the crash. Police found evidence showing she was making a phone call at the time of the fatal incident.
Pringle was subsequently charged with two counts of causing death by dangerous driving, which she admitted along with a single count of possession of the Class B drug cannabis. She was handed a nine-year jail term.
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Dempsey Lunn
A driver who was an “absolute menace on the roads of Leicester” was jailed for a string of offences. Dempsey Lunn sped away from police when they tried to stop him and drove dangerously along Penman Way in Grove Park and other roads in Enderby, forcing oncoming cars to take evasive action, jumping red lights and driving onto the pavement.
And he did the same thing three weeks later, reaching speeds of up to 70mph in a residential area of Leicester where the limit is 30mph. On that occasion he narrowly missed hitting a pedestrian as he tried to evade Leicestershire Police.
Lunn, 31, of Herle Avenue, Braunstone, Leicester, admitted other offences included burgling a student block in Milstone Lane, Leicester city centre in September last year to steal workmen’s tools worth about £1,200, and smashing the window of a house in Loughborough in June last year.
As well as being jailed for 23 months, Lunn was banned from driving for five years after the date of his release and will have to take an extended re-test before he can drive again.
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Gerard McDonagh
A driver was jailed after reversing at high speed into a Leicestershire Police car, leaving an officer with serious neck, back and limb injuries. In November 2022 Pc James Yeoman was following a Land Rover Freelander on the M1 that was displaying false number plates.
Pc Yeoman followed the vehicle at a distance and it exited at junction 22 and headed into Markfield. On Old House Lane the Land Rover stopped and the driver, Gerard McDonagh, reversed into the police car and hit it with such force the airbags deployed and McDonagh, 21, of Copt Oak Road, Markfield then drove off.
Pc Yeoman sustained serious leg, back, neck and arm injuries and was taken to the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham. Thousands of pounds worth of damage was caused to the police car.
McDonagh was charged with dangerous driving, criminal damage, and assault on an emergency worker. He was jailed for 10 months and banned from driving for two years and five months.
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Matt Bates
Matt Bates, 37, has been jailed for three years and nine months for killing Colin Banks, 64, by careless driving while on drugs
(Image: Leicestershire Police)
Matt Bates was jailed for three years and nine months after ramming into a 64-year-old cyclist while driving his children to football practice. The drug user was over the driving limit for cocaine when the collision happened.
At first he told police the cyclist, Colin Banks, had hit the kerb and swerved into his path but his son told a paramedic that his father had been looking for a song on his phone and hadn’t seen Mr Banks in the road.
Mr Banks suffered a fatal head injury while Bates’s Audi Q5, with his two young children in it, crashed into a ditch and ended up on its side. Bates denied causing death by dangerous driving but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of causing death by careless driving while over the drug-driving limit.
He had a by-product of the Class A drug cocaine in his system at three times the legal limit for driving when the collision happened on the B4114 Coventry Road, Sharnford, near Hinckley, on Sunday, January 30, 2022.
Bates, 37, will be disqualified from driving for five years after his release from prison. The court said he will also have to take an extended re-test before he can drive again.
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Steven Gaskell
A man was jailed for causing the death of his girlfriend in a crash. Despite being banned from driving until August 2024, almost one year earlier Steven Gaskell, 31, had gone to buy a new Mini Cooper and was driving it towards Market Harborough on the A427 through the village of Brampton Ash when he lost control, crashing into a field where the vehicle rolled several times.
Mum-of-one Courtney Donnelly, 23, was pronounced dead at the scene from severe head injuries. Gaskell, who suffered head injuries and broken bones, had to be cut free from the vehicle by firefighters and was taken to hospital.
The crash, at about 10.30pm on Sunday, September 17 last year, and officers found cannabis in the car as well as evidence Gaskell, of Fotheringhay Road, Corby, had been dealing the drug.
Gaskell pleaded guilty causing death by driving while disqualified, possession with intent to supply of cannabis and driving with no insurance. He was jailed for five years and two months, with his disqualification extended to two years after his release from prison.
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Nathan Wileman
Nathan Wileman
A driver deliberately knocked down and injured a pedestrian after a Saturday night at the pub. Nathan Wileman, of Wash Lane, Ravenstone, near Coalville, and his victim had both drinking at a pub in nearby Measham before the incident happened.
Wileman, 34, got in his white Transit pickup van and waited for the other man to leave the pub and cross the High Street in Measham before driving directly into him, then driving at him a second time, causing serious injuries to the man’s foot. Wileman fled the scene after the collision, which happened at about at 9.50pm on Saturday, July 4, 2020.
Witnesses to the incident described how Wileman had been driving erratically and swerving his vehicle before hitting the man. At a court hearing he pleaded guilty to Section 18 Grievous Bodily Harm and dangerous driving.
Earlier this year at Leicester Crown Court Wileman was sentenced to four years and four months in prison. He was also disqualified from driving for four years and two months, which will begin upon his release from prison.
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Curtis Cotterill
A drink-driver was jailed after a high-speed chase across Leicester from Rushey Mead to Rowley Fields, in which he almost hit a pedestrian and went at 85mph down Leicester’s Narborough Road. The chase saw him jump numerous red lights, swerve onto the oncoming lane and skid around a roundabout while being pursued.
Leicestershire Police had received a phone call shortly after midnight on Monday, February 12, to say that a BMW 1 Series was being driven dangerously along Troon Way, Rushey Mead. A police officer in an unmarked car drove to the area and at 12.45am was waiting at the junction of Troon Way and Melton Road when Curtis Cotterill pulled up next to him in the BMW on cloned numberplates, not realising he was a policeman.
The officer watched as Cotterill, who was nearly twice the drink-drive limit and had a front-seat passenger in the vehicle, spun the rear wheels and accelerated fast down Melton Road, driving into the bus lane and speeding through a red traffic light at about 60mph toward the city centre.
He turned right at the inner ring road onto Burleys Way, jumped two more sets of red lights and continued onto St Augustine Road and Tudor Road with the police officer pursuing him. Cotterill turned left onto Bosworth Street and sped up the residential road, almost hitting a pedestrian, who had to jump out of the way.
Other police cars joined the pursuit and he turned back towards Narborough Road. He drove south along the road, swerving onto the wrong sides of bollards and travelling at speeds of up to 85mph along the road, which has a speed limit of 30mph, before turning left onto Evesham Road and driving into the Faircharm Industrial Estate.
At that point, Cotterill rammed into the side of a police car and his passenger leapt out and fled. Cotterill drove on further into the industrial estate and tried to make off on foot before being caught.
He was breathalysed and gave a reading of 69 microgrammes of alcohol per 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes.
Cotterill, 29, of Offranville Close, Thurmaston, entered guilty pleads the following day to charges of drink-driving, dangerous driving, criminal damage, driving with fake numberplates and failing to stop for the police.
Cotterill was jailed for 16 months and he will be disqualified for three years after his release from prison. He will have to complete and extended retest before he can drive again.
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Eithan Watkins
A teenager who stole a car and took it for a drive with his friends was arrested after a TikTok video of him at the wheel was spotted by police. A Halfords reciept also led to Eithan Watkins appearing before the courts in connection with the crime this week.
The Ford Focus was taken from George Street, Loughborough one evening in January this year. A video posted on TikTok was soon spotted by a constable with Leicestershire Police following the report it had been stolen, with the clip showing Watkins driving the vehicle.
Footage seen on social media from outside the car also showed Watkins’ face and the vehicle registration number. He was arrested in connection with the incident but denied everything.
However, nine days after the car was taken it was found in a Loughborough car park, undamaged but with the registration plate altered. Inside the car, officers spotted a Halfords receipt. Using the time and date from the receipt, they looked at the CCTV footage from the Halfords store and it showed Watkins.
Watkins, who had admittted taking a vehicle without consent, had committed the crime shortly before he was jailed for burglary for 33 months.
The magistrates gave him a 63-day sentence, which will run concurrently and not affect his release date, and ordered him to pay a £154 victim surcharge on release.
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