Birmingham ambulance driver faces battle to keep driving licence
AN ambulance driver was forced into a £2,300 legal battle to save his job after a sat nav sent him the wrong direction down a one-way street.
Father-of-three Avtar Suniara, who has been an NHS ambulance technician for Birmingham’s City Hospital for six years, with a clean record, was stopped by police while off duty as he turned unwittingly on to Radford Road, in Coventry.
Mr Suniara’s world was thrown into turmoil as even though he was following the sat nav, he was a stranger to the area and the one-way road signs had been vandalised, police decided to charge him with driving without due care and attention – which could lead to a driving ban and cost the paramedic his livelihood.
The situation was complicated further by a DVLA blunder, which had wiped Mr Suniara’s licence record from the computer system, meaning police also accused him of driving without a licence.
A selection of solicitors originally told the 40-year-old defendant to plead guilty and “see what happened”, but with so much at stake, Mr Suniara was determined to fight his case.
“I could have lost everything if I hadn’t fought for it,” said Mr Suniara, of Arthur Road, Handsworth.
“My job is reliant on my driving licence and I would have been left unemployed with three children and a wife to support.
“Most of the law firms I saw didn’t care about that but I endeavoured and found a motor offence specialist who did. It was the first time I had ever been to that area and the road signs had been vandalised and were taped up, so I had no idea it was one-way and was just following the sat nav directions.”
Mr Suniara, who works in the patient transport department, added: “I tried explaining but the police were not interested at all and the officer just kept saying: ‘Sat nav’s don’t lie’.
“The error by the DVLA computer system saying I didn’t even have a licence made things worse, even though I was showing the police my driving licence.
“Luckily I had savings as the cost of a good solicitor to fight my corner has been more than £2,300.
“It turned my life upside down and it could have left me ruined.”
Mr Suniara’s solicitor Jeanette Miller, from law firm Geoffrey Miller, explained the errors to the Criminal Prosecution Service, which reduced the charge to ‘contravening a one-way sign’, which carries only three points and allowed the driver to continue working.
She said that one road sign had been obscured from view while another was defaced and broken in half so that the top half of the sign was missing, while an administration error by the the DVLA stated Mr Suniara’s licence had been revoked, but they had actually issued a new licence and failed to update their records.
“It is a shame the CPS did not adopt a more common-sense approach with the case from the beginning,” she said.
A DVLA spokesman said: “Errors are extremely rare but we thoroughly investigate all cases reported to us.”
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