A TEENAGE motorist who is expecting to become a father in the near future has been banned from driving for 42 days by magistrates in Swindon.

Jack Avery, 18, of Bessemer Road East in Swindon pleaded guilty on Tuesday to driving his Ford Fiesta without insurance.

The police prosecutor told the court that Avery was seen by uniformed police in a patrol car driving on Faringdon Road, Swindon at 10.14pm on June 16 this year.

Suspecting that he had no insurance the police pulled him over before being told by Motor Insurance Bureau that Avery’s insurance policy had been cancelled because he had not kept up the payments.

Avery, representing himself in court, said he had moved out of his mother’s house to where the letter was sent notifying him that his insurance had been cancelled.

He was therefore, he told the bench, oblivious of the fact that he was no longer insured to drive.

He added that worked as an apprentice motor mechanic and asked the bench to disqualify him from driving for a short period instead of endorsing his licence with penalty points, which as a newly-qualified driver would return him to provisional licence status.

Chairman of the bench Diana Crockett told Avery: “Ignorance is no defence. You say in your letter that you have a child on the way. Bear I mind that you could have hit a child and the consequences of being uninsured would have been catastrophic.”

Avery was disqualified from driving for 42 days, fined £214 and ordered to pay court costs of £85 and a victim surcharge of £30.